Wal-Mart to revive Beijing strategy via JD.com tie-up

SHANGHAI: Wal-Mart Stores Inc has hit the reset button on its China strategy in dramatic fashion.

The world’s largest retailer is making an ambitious push into e-commerce in China and aims to deliver goods from its stores around the world to Chinese consumers within hours. Shoppers in select remote villages could even see their Wal-Mart products being delivered by drones as part of a pilot project by its Chinese partner, JD.com Inc.

After unsuccessful efforts to scale up its own e-commerce network, Wal-Mart launched this week several new initiatives through a tie-up with JD.com — China’s second-largest ecommerce website, with almost 200 million active users.

Wal-Mart said it would now be able to deliver its goods, ranging from American vitamins to Japanese hand cream, to more than 90 per cent of China’s 1.4 billion consumers.

“There isn’t another country in the world that represents the kind of retail growth opportunity that China does, given the growth rate of the market itself and the consumer demand here,” said chief executive officer Doug McMillon in Beijing.

“We see opportunities to partner together to provide goods to our customers, to leverage our supply chain and their digital capabilities.”

Wal-Mart has a lot riding on its new online strategy aimed at getting a bigger slice of the world’s biggest ecommerce market. Bloomberg