Dual-engine drive to analyze JD.com's ambition to become an international smart company

"Don't miss out on the Chinese market with unlimited potential." This has become the common voice of the global technology industry when promoting products. From Apple, Google, and Microsoft to startups in Silicon Valley, in the era of intelligence, they are all focusing on the vibrant Chinese market.

Similarly, for domestic innovative enterprises, integrating international elements has a more far-reaching significance for the construction of the smart ecosystem. Previously, JD Intelligence announced the official establishment of an international business department to layout the overseas smart hardware market. In just two months, the department has launched two targeted projects, Open Day and Power UP, aiming to build a bridge for JD Intelligence to connect with overseas smart startups.

Dual engines help incubate smart products at home and abroad

JD Intelligent International Business Department has clearly defined its mission objectives since its establishment. On the one hand, relying on JD Group's powerful e-commerce resources, it provides strong support for outstanding overseas intelligent startups to enter the Chinese market; on the other hand, through strategic cooperation with top overseas accelerators and technology companies, it jointly cultivates potential projects in the intelligent industry.

According to Lin Zhibin, head of JD.com's intelligent international business, the previously launched JD+ Open Day and the upcoming JD+ Power UP are designed for different types of startup teams respectively.

The JD+ Open Day program will be dedicated to assisting early Silicon Valley startup teams to conduct project roadshows in Beijing and help them find matching supply chain and other resources; the JD+ Power UP program targets more mature overseas startup teams and, relying on JD’s powerful e-commerce resources, provides them with valuable access to the Chinese market.

Of particular note is the upcoming Power UP plan, which fully relies on JD.com's own advantages and resources to provide four platforms for overseas entrepreneurs. "The first trial platform is a community dedicated to trial use on JD.com; the second first-launch platform will be a product launch through JD.com's first-launch channel; the third crowdfunding platform will help products land on JD.com crowdfunding; and the fourth is a B2C platform, relying on JD.COM e-commerce platform," Lin Zhibin said. These four platforms will be integrated into an aggregation page in the future, which can not only help overseas entrepreneurs complete product localization, but also showcase Silicon Valley's latest smart hardware products to consumers, building a bridge for communication between the two sides.

Why JD Smart is going international

As for JD.com itself, there have been comments that internationalization is Liu Qiangdong's ultimate dream. He has said more than once, "In the past, China mainly engaged in intermediate manufacturing and OEM, and the front-end brand end and the end retail end were occupied by foreign companies, and these two links are the two ends of the industry chain with the most value and profit. Therefore, JD.com's internationalization is to be able to make some attempts for this country, hoping to sell high-quality products produced by China's powerful manufacturing industry to all parts of the world through JD.com."

This time, JD Intelligence vigorously expands its international business. On the one hand, it can help outstanding overseas entrepreneurial teams enter the Chinese market, and on the other hand, it also injects fresh vitality into the JD+ ecosystem through support for cutting-edge technologies. Similarly, JD Intelligence is also using its international business to create a platform for openness, integration and communication in the smart hardware industry, providing more opportunities for Chinese entrepreneurs to go global.

For a long time, the support for domestic smart hardware entrepreneurial projects from project incubation, product development to funding, crowdfunding and market levels can be understood as opening up the path for the vertical development of smart hardware. Now, the projects that JD Smart focuses on have extended from domestic to international, which can be understood as a more horizontal and global development trend, which is more in line with the theme of JD Smart's open smart ecosystem.

Lin Zhibin revealed that internationalization is an important strategic direction for JD.com, which includes introducing excellent global products into China's international pavilion business like the "JD France Pavilion" and "JD Germany Pavilion"; it also includes bringing the JD.com model to a broader international market.

Chinese e-commerce companies are keen on smart products

In fact, JD.com is not the only e-commerce company that is paying more and more attention to the construction of smart ecosystems. Alibaba and international e-commerce giants such as Amazon are paying attention to smart product start-ups through incubators and crowdfunding, and investing large sums of money to support them.

Industry insiders believe that through observation, it can be found that most of the investments in e-commerce platforms are related to their own businesses and are mostly strategic investments. Once these projects grow up, they can make up for or improve the industrial chain and industrial layout of the e-commerce platforms.

Lin Zhibin introduced that "Open Day and Power UP projects focus on interconnection and interoperability, and will also consider smart homes, wearable devices and other products that are closely related to JD's main business, such as drones that can be used for transportation." It can be seen that e-commerce investment in advanced technology and smart hardware pays more attention to the complementarity between entrepreneurial projects and the company's own business, and more cutting-edge projects have huge room for development and can cultivate more potential consumers in the early stages.

Similarly, both domestic entrepreneurs and overseas start-up teams are very interested in the huge number of users on e-commerce platforms. According to Lin Zhibin, overseas teams have realized the strong consumption capacity of the Chinese market. According to a report by Barron's, China's per capita online shopping consumption capacity is close to that of the United States, and the purchasing power has reached the same level. Entrepreneurs are aware of the importance of the Chinese market, and the crowdfunding and first-release models of e-commerce platforms are also very attractive to consumers.

According to statistics, JD.com sells smart products from more than 500 brands. In 2014, JD.com's annual smart hardware shipment orders approached 10 million, with sales increasing by 280% year-on-year.

With the continuous improvement of JD+ ecology, it has formed a relatively complete and open intelligent ecological chain layout and become an integrator of the intelligent industry. The advancement of JD's intelligent internationalization strategy has not only achieved mutual exchanges between start-up teams in the field of intelligence at home and abroad, but also fully met the diversified needs of JD's massive and high-quality users. It has achieved a win-win situation in which users obtain products, JD goes global, and manufacturers gain market share.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.