Shopify Partners With China's E-commerce Platform JD.com

(RTTNews) - Canada-based e-commerce company Shopify (SHOP) has announced plans to partner with Chinese counterpart JD.com (JD) that will make it easier for U.S. merchants to get access to customers in China.

The partnership will link Shopify's millions of merchants worldwide with JD.com's 550 million active customers in China who use the platform to find authentic, high-quality products, the companies said in a statement. Financial details of the deal were not revealed.

The collaboration comes at a time when there is a tight competition in the Chinese e-commerce market with giant players like Alibaba, Pinduoduo and Douyin dominating the market.

"Bringing together two world-class commerce platforms—Shopify and JD.com—is a major step in solving cross-border commerce for merchants," said Aaron Brown, Vice President of Shopify. "The future of commerce is commerce everywhere—and that starts by removing barriers to entry to one of the most important e-commerce markets in the world."

"JD.com is thrilled to partner with Shopify," said Daniel Tan, President of JD Worldwide. "We believe that the partnership will unlock the huge potential of the Chinese market for brands outside of China. At the same time, it will increase cross-border commerce by leveraging our global supply chain ability, simplifying what has traditionally been a very complicated process."

Shopify merchants in the U.S. can start selling their products in China within three to four weeks instead of waiting for 12 months to do so, a wait-time typically required by foreign brands to sell in the country, Shopify said.