Richard Liu is someone who has had a significant impact on the retail industry and is changing the face of the e-commerce fashion market. As a entrepreneur, he has always wanted to reach new heights and establish a good name for himself. His eye for business led him to become the founder of JD.com or Jingdong as it is sometimes referred to, one of the biggest players in the Chinese e-commerce industry.
Richard Liu has always been someone looking to establish new ventures. When Liu was in college, he decided that he would start up his own business. At the time, he was involved with programming and borrowed some money from his family to help him set up the business. However, the business did not work out as intended, leaving Liu in debt at the time. This experience, however, did not discourage Liu who knew that he had more in store for him. Two years after graduating from college, he decided to start Jingdong. The company first started out as a business that was focused on selling a range of authentic products. This business started out at a time when there was a surge of counterfeit products in the Chinese market. The authenticity of the products is what helped the company grow and achieve new heights.
The Improvement
During 2003, China was affected by the SARS syndrome, causing the company to have to shut down. During this time, Liu was homebound and continued to work on his business from his residence. During this time, he realized the dire need for a company that could deliver authentic products from home and came up with the idea of starting up a website that performed the same kind of business that he already did, just on an online front. A year later, the website was up and running and began netting Liu a considerable amount of money. Within a short period of time, the website began to gain popularity and become a notable site for people to visit when they wanted to shop.
Through the course of the next few years, Liu ensured that Jingdong followed a strict business plan that would lead it to stand among the giants in the e-commerce industry. With the numerous developments to the website, JD.com become one of the preferred options for those who were looking to shop online.
Venturing into The Future
Even though the company stands as a prominent member of the Chinese e-commerce industry, Liu continues to implement improvements that could better the functionality of the company as a whole. To help the site grow further, Liu decided to appoint Xia Ding as the president of the fashion division of Jingdong. Ding is a notable icon in the Chinese fashion industry and is known for having an incredible fashion sense, along with her inherent skill with handling businesses. In light of the fierce competition that the site was facing with its competitors, the move to appoint Ding as the President of the company was overall seen as a beneficial one.
One of the bigger reasons why Ding was appointed to this position was because of her strong knowledge of high fashion and because of her understanding of the high fashion market. Liu had been looking for ways to tap into new audiences and expand the company’s reach, and entering into the division of high fashion is something that can contribute immensely to the development that the site can experience.
Even though JD.com stands as one of the most prominent e-commerce options in China, there is still an immense amount of potential for the company to grow, which is something that Liu is actively working towards.