Walmart made a big eCommerce investment in Chinese company New Dada, which is the country’s biggest on-demand logistics and grocery eCommerce platform.
The deal comes shortly after the retail giant made three other large eCommerce initiatives in China. The $50 million investment in New Dada further extends Walmart’s agreement with JD.com, Chain Store Age reported.
Customers will be offered two-hour delivery on Walmart grocery orders through the JD Daojia Dada app and New Dada’s network.
“All around the world, we’re creating seamless shopping experiences that bring together our stores, sites and apps to make shopping faster and easier,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon explained. “Our alliance with JD and cooperation with New Dada will enable seamless shopping to millions of customers across China.”
The New Dada service has more than 25 million registered customers.
Combining the New Dada delivery network and Walmart stores is expected to give “consumers convenient access to a wide range of high-quality goods delivered to their homes and offices in record time,” Philip Kuai, CEO of New Dada, said. “We look forward to deepening our cooperation with Walmart as China’s O2O retail industry continues to evolve and grow.”
Walmart has had an online presence in China since 2011 after buying part of the Yihaodian supermarket business. Unfortunately, at the time, that partnership failed for Walmart in terms of grabbing market share. But there was some subsequent buying and selling of Yihaodian.
As PYMNTS reported earlier this year, Walmart agreed to unload Yihaodian to JD.com for 144.9 million shares of the company, or approximately 5 percent of JD.com’s total shares outstanding. JD.com now controls the Yihaodian brand, website and app, while Walmart continues to handle Yihaodian’s direct sales business and sells on Yihaodian’s online marketplace.
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