JD.com, Five Star Appliance Ink Strategic Cooperation Deal to Expand E-Commerce Giant's Offline Channels
Xu Wei
DATE:  Dec 12 2017
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
JD.com, Five Star Appliance Ink Strategic Cooperation Deal to Expand E-Commerce Giant's Offline Channels JD.com, Five Star Appliance Ink Strategic Cooperation Deal to Expand E-Commerce Giant's Offline Channels

(Yicai Global) Dec. 12 -- China's e-commerce giant JD.Com, Inc. [NASDAQ:JD] signed a strategic cooperation agreement with one of China's home appliance retailer, Jiangsu Five Star Appliance Co. The former will leverage the latter's physical stores to expand offline channels.

Both companies will team up to establish JD retail experience shops, mainly offering consumer electronics products in key cities, JD.Com said yesterday. The experience stores will focus on commodity experience, different from traditional shopping mode of selling goods.

JD retail experience shops will first open in first-tier cities, then gradually expand into the provincial-level cities and prefecture-level cities to finally achieve the goal of "one city, one store," said Yan Xiaobing, vice president of JD.Com and president of the firm's home appliance division.

In terms of its online restructuring, Five Star Appliance will set up brand stores on JD.Com's home appliance open platform to be operated by its own teams. Five Star Appliance will also achieve product sales through JD.Com's e-commerce platform in a bid to upgrade itself from being a regional channel to a national channel.

The pair will also cooperate in the supply chain, logistics and warehousing, and fintech. JD.Com will make use of its online Big Data and analytics technology to keep Five Star Appliance's offline stores stocked with recommended categories, improve its stock satisfaction rate and reduce the transportation costs.

Five Star Appliance plans to open more than 60 self-managed stores next year and pilots to open physical stores by the dual brand of Five Star Appliance and JD.Com in new areas, Pan Yiqing, its president said.

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Keywords:   JD.com,Five Star,E-COMMERCE,ONLINE