China’s second largest e-commerce platform JD.com released its main strategy for baby products on Thursday, one day before China’s new tax regulations for cross-border e-commerce came into effect.
Its strategy covers quality, community and individualized services. First, JD.com will use both its quality control system and third-party quality inspection system to ensure product quality. Also, JD aims to build a community by setting up Mamabang, a platform to help mothers make purchases. In this online community, users can watch videos for advice, read e-magazines on child-rearing and communicate with other experienced users to get help. Users will be able to access the community through JD.com and related apps.
For individualized services, JD’s strategy is to sell various kinds of scrapbooks for kids on their website to help mothers record the growth of their children.
According to Chinese research company iResearch, JD.com ranks first in baby product sales in 2015, surpassing Alibaba’s Tmall. JD.com sold 40.3% of the milk powder sold from January to October, while Tmall sold 27.7%.
China’s new tax regulations for cross-border e-commerce will eliminate the previous tax exemption for goods under RMB 50 and limit tariff-free single purchases to RMB 2,000, which will drive up the price of several categories of products including baby products and cosmetics.
Under the new tax regulations, the tax on imported baby products will increase 11.9%, which could pose a challenge for cross-border e-commerce. But “in the long term, it’s beneficial for law-abiding e-commerce platforms. JD.com has confidence it can expand its business in this field,” said Feng Yi, the vice president of JD.com, at a press conference on Thursday.
（Top photo from photo.wed114.cn.）