China’s JD.com starts selling goods via Google: Report
JD.com, the second-largest online shopping platform in China, has started selling around 500 products on Google Express, the search giant's e-commerce platform .
The online store operated by JD.com, called Joybuy, offers around 500 products. The products are mostly electronic devices, such as keyboards and battery chargers, and kitchen appliances, according to Chinese reports on Tuesday.
"What we can share at this stage is that we are conducting test operations during this early phase," a JD.com spokeswoman in an email, according to Reuters.
The move marks the first time the two companies have worked together since Google invested $550 million into JD.com last June.
At the same time, American office supplies retailer Office Depot said it was collaborating with Alibaba Group to launch a co-branded e-commerce B2B website to target small and medium sized business operators within the United States.
The partnership will give Alibaba access to 10 million business customers and 1,800 sales agents, and allow small businesses to tap into Alibaba's global network of over 150,000 suppliers and next-day delivery services, according to Fortune.
The Office Depot deal is Alibaba's first attempt at a B2B cooperation with a major US company.
In China, the amount of people who purchased goods online increased to 569 million by the end of June 2018, up from 516 million for the same period a year prior, research data showed.
However, China's leading e-commerce companies have begun eyeing expansion to overseas markets as the rate of domestic growth slows. The Chinese government this week predicted that its economy would only expand between 6 percent and 6.5 percent in 2019, down from last year's 6.6 percent rate of expansion, which was already its weakest annual growth in three decades.
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