Jumei sales double

Jumei, the Chinese online retailer, says its sales rose 99.5 per cent in the second quarter to June 30.

The e-tailer achieved net revenues of US$308.1 million and its GMV rose by 30 per cent to $376 million as its customer base grew 28 per cent and orders by 58.2 per cent.

But its gross profit as a percentage of net revenues decreased to 30 per cent from 46.3 per cent in the same period of 2014 reflecting the company’s shift in strategy from beauty product marketplace sales to general merchandise sales that started last September – along with promotional activities associated with baby and maternity products.

Leo Chen, Jumei’s founder and CEO, said the company was “thrilled” with its quarter.

“This very strong growth was driven by Jumei Global during what is typically a seasonally light quarter. We continue to strengthen our position as a leading import cross-border eCommerce platform in China – a milestone we achieved last quarter. We are pleased to see both active customers and number of orders grow rapidly while maintaining a high repeat purchase rate.”

Chen said since transitioning into cross-border eCommerce during the third quarter of 2014, the frequency of customer purchases has grown significantly, increasing 34 per cent from the third quarter of 2014 to the second quarter of 2015, due primarily to Jumei’s diverse global product offerings and expansion into other women’s categories such as baby and maternity and health and wellness.

“We are confident that our continued investment in category expansion will enhance the customer experience, increase user stickiness and strengthen loyalty to our platform,” said Chen.

“We recently announced a strategic investment in BabyTree, the largest online parenting community in China and the largest globally as ranked by traffic volume, with daily active users (“DAU”) exceeding 10 million. By integrating Jumei’s supply chain and logistics expertise in cross border ecommerce with BabyTree’s large and growing user base, we believe we will be able to leverage the significant cross-selling opportunities across all Jumei categories to become the dominant female-focused ecommerce platform in China.”