Santander UK announces commercial partnership with JD.com, China’s largest retailer

We’ve announced an official commercial partnership with e-commerce giant, JD.com. This follows the signing of the MOU back in June 2016, where we and JD.com pledged to work together to provide increased and easier access to the Chinese e-commerce market. The partnership means our UK based SME customers can now launch stores on JD.com Worldwide.

About JD.com

JD.com is China’s largest retailer offering international merchants the ability to tap into the Chinese market without a need to be physically present in China. It offers immediate access to their base of more than 266.3 million active customers and a renowned and comprehensive logistics network, which can be adapted to any customisation requirements, while still delivering on reliability and timeliness promises. There is further reassurance for SMEs with their zero-tolerance policy towards counterfeit goods.

The scale of the Chinese market is phenomenal. China’s middle class is expected to grow to 600 million people by 2025, with 200 million more online retail shoppers projected, and online retail sales expected to double to USD 1.7 billion by 2020.

Our customers are already making sales via the platform

Since the signing of MOU in 2016, a carefully selected group of our customers have started leading the way in embarking on this exciting new journey. We’ve been facilitating a range of support services to these UK SMEs using JD.com Worldwide’s cross-border e-commerce platform.

A few of these SMEs have already started selling on JD.com and many are in advanced discussions and in preparation to list and/or launch their online flagship stores in the coming months. We expect to see many more of our customers come on board in 2018.

John Carroll, Head of International Business at Santander Corporate & Commercial Bank said:

Facilitating these connections between customers and genuine business opportunities (across borders) is the essence of what we’re trying to do with our international business. We’re thrilled to announce our official partnership with JD.com, which allows our SME customers to start selling their products in China via JD.com Worldwide’s extensive network that’s dedicated to providing Chinese customers with quality products from around the world.

Kaisi Li, Deputy General Manager of JD.com Worldwide, said:

Through our cross-border ecommerce platform, we are making it easier than ever for international merchants to tap into the potential of the China market. This partnership with Santander opens up many more opportunities to SMEs across the UK. Demand for imported products in China is strong and growing rapidly, and we’re excited to work with Santander to enable more UK-based brands to benefit from the growth of this huge market.

Our international offering

We’re passionate about helping businesses make the most of the incredible benefits exporting can deliver. As well as the JD.com offer, we have the unique Santander Trade Portal, an online tool for businesses to identify where the best importing and exporting opportunities are for their particular products and services, and the Santander Trade Club to introduce our clients to an online community of importers and exporters in 14 countries to help them conduct business overseas.

Santander Group also operates a dedicated International Desk Network, which covers our 10 core markets in Europe and the Americas as well China and North Africa, where we have alliances, to support UK businesses that are ready to enter new markets.

If you’re interested in exploring exporting, visit our International hub.