In an era of e-commerce, where stores can be opened or closed overnight, it’s easy to forget that there were no such things as online shopping not too long ago. This all changed when a 25-year-old entrepreneur named Richard Liu founded JD.com in 1998 and started selling electronics and other goods on the internet out of his dorm room at Beijing University.
Now this company is one of China’s largest exporters and has helped create a new generation of Chinese consumers who prefer using their computers over visiting physical retail stores for their purchases.
Starting JD.com
Liu Qiangdong founded JD.com in 1998 when he was just twenty-five years old and studying at Beijing University. His first order of business was to rent an apartment with a warehouse space in which they would store all the goods ordered online so they could be shipped to customers’ homes.
Following their success, Liu created another company called 360buy.com but quickly sold his stake because it wasn’t doing well financially, back in 2007 before going public on its own two years later for $22 billion. In 2013, this number reached almost ten times, making him one of China’s wealthiest men, worth over thirty-five billion dollars!
Revolutionizing the Chinese Ecommerce Space
Before JD.com, there were no Chinese eCommerce sites that offered next day deliveries for their customers. The reason being is that they did not have the infrastructure to do so, and it was easier just sending their goods overseas than domestically within China itself.
Qiangdong created the company with over 80 fulfilment centers around the country with warehouses where millions of products get stored, making them easily accessible by couriers at any given time.
As a result, many other companies like Alibaba (the largest online retailer in China) started copying what he had done. Still, they couldn’t quite reach his level of success even though Alibaba does control forty per cent of all B-C transactions made each year. Visit this page for more information.
More about Richard Liu on https://www.forbes.com/profile/richard-qiangdong-liu/#373abb37486b