JD.com partners with short-video site ahead of annual promotion

JD.com, one of the biggest e-commerce platforms in China, announced Wednesday a partnership with short video site Kuaishou for online promotions.

JD.com's annual June 18 anniverary sale is coming soon, and the e-commerce platform is also preparing for its Hong Kong IPO in early June.

Kuaishou is a short video platform similar to TikTok. The platform claims to have 300 million active daily users.

Kuaishou video bloggers will do live broadcasts to sell goods via JD.com between June 16 and 18. Online viewers will be directed to JD.com from links posted on Kuaishou's live-streaming platform. JD.com will carry out the delivery after the online purchase.

After almost six months of economic stagnation, Chinese e-commerce platforms are hoping to stimulate consumption during the mid-June promotion period. A battle is shaping up, and live-streaming is where the fighting will be fiercest. Taobao, Alibaba's e-commerce website, appears to have quietly partnered with Douyin (the China version of TikTok) for mid-June promotions; Taobao links have appeared in several videos that recently got a push on the Douyin front page.

Also recently, Pinduoduo partnered with GOME Electrical Appliances in April to sell home appliances on its platform. And Alibaba started pre-sale activities on May 25. Gu Wei, the president of home appliance seller Suning, which has partnered with Alibaba, has promised that Suning will compensate customers if the product they sell is more expensive than on JD.com.