JD.com focuses on fashions, foreign goods

As usual, celebrities sat in the front rows near the catwalks during New York Fashion Week in February and the usual bevy of photographers were there. But the clothes worn by models came from designers selling their goods on a newcomer to the US fashion world: JD.com, China's second-largest e-commerce company behind Alibaba.

With international fashion and apparel a key strategic focus this year for JD.com, the company was in New York to market its image, recruit new brands and retailers and set up a new US Fashion Mall.

The mall highlights a range of American brands, including Calvin Klein, GUESS, Paul Frank and Under Armour. Featured accessory and footwear brands include Converse, New Balance, Reebok, Steve Madden, Nine West and Vans.

Lijun Xin, president of JD.com's apparel and home furnishing business unit, said "more stylish Chinese consumers come online and look to JD.com for premium apparel."

Another focus for the company this year is to put more foreign products just fingertips away for its 170 million active users.

JD.com CEO Richard Liu launched the US Mall in July 2015 at The Plaza hotel in New York. A video of American pop star Taylor Swift was played at the event, announcing that JD.com would be the exclusive outlet for her fashion line in China.

The US Mall is one of nine national and regional malls on JD Worldwide, and later this year more malls will be opened.

The US Mall further positions JD.com as a competitor to Jack Ma's Alibaba, as both companies have focused on cross-border e-commerce. Both have established offices in Silicon Valley.

"JD has a clear goal of globalization. We have our one-stop solutions for foreign companies who want to enter China, especially small and medium-size companies," said Tony Qiu, general manager of JD Worldwide.

"They probably lack of the experience, capability or financial support, and these are the areas we will be able to provide help to them. We want to enhance the trade relationship between China and the US," he said.

During last year's Singles Day, , JD Worldwide saw an increase in sales orders of 366 percent compared with its October average, said the company's spokesperson. Products from the US Mall and Japan Mall were most popular, and top selling products were milk powder and diapers.

On May 9, JD.com reported that its net revenue rose 47.3 percent to 54 billion yuan ($8.4billion) in the first quarter compared to the same period last year. JD said its gross merchandise volume, which is the total value of goods sold on its website, rose 55 percent in local currency to the equivalent of $20.1 billion.

"We had a solid first quarter of the year with healthy growth in revenues, new users and mobile traffic," said CEO Liu in the company's earnings release.

As for 2016's growth outlook, CFO Sidney Huang told Reuters before the earnings report, "Despite the macro slowdown the consumption growth remains healthy. We remain cautiously optimistic about our 2016 growth outlook."

"Don't trust the coverage saying that Chinese consumption is slowing down," Liu told 400 potential US partners at the US Mall launch event. "Go to the shops on Fifth Avenue to see for yourself."

"And if one day you see that Chinese shoppers disappeared from Fifth Avenue, again it's not a problem with the consumption power of Chinese. It means JD.com has made it." Liu said to audience laughter.

hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com