JD expands into social etail

Chinese internet services giant JD has launched a social e-commerce platform named Jingxi, providing discounts on team purchases to target users in small to medium-sized cities in China.

The business model, which invites buyers to share deals with friends to score significant discounts, emulates those of rivals Pinduoduo and Juhuansuan.

“We’re going to diversify and enrich our WeChat ecosystem and provide a new model to attract lower-tier cities, especially female users and low-income users,” said JD Retail CEO Lei Xu about the new Jingxi platform.

“We’ll continue to enhance our user experiences and also gain more potential customers from third to six-tier cities,” added JD.com chairman and CEO Richard Liu.