There has been a noisy war of words developing between China’s e-commerce giant Jingdong Mall and one of its key couriers Shentong. This issue is part of what looks like a broader growing discord between Jingdong, which also goes by the name 360Buy, and many of the courier companies that deliver the millions of goods that consumers buy online. Such discord is just as much a sign of the chaos that now plagues China’s e-commerce space as it is of the rampant competition that has pushed most major players deeply into the red.
Let’s have a look at this latest flare-up, which has a delivery service named Shentong Express refusing to deliver some goods from merchants to Jingdong’s warehouses. Jingdong typically buys its goods from such third-party merchants, and then stores their products at its own warehouses for eventual delivery to customers. Jingdong was apparently implying that Shentong was slowing or halting some of its deliveries to show its displeasure after Jingdong itself got a license to operate its own rival courier service.
A number of China’s other e-commerce firms have also eyed the delivery business. Many complain that smaller delivery companies are unreliable and offer poor customer service, which ultimately tarnishes their own reputation.
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(Source: scmp.com)