© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A man walks past the company logo of JD.com during the 2021 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing, China September 4, 2021. REUTERS/Florence Lo

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese e-commerce giant JD (NASDAQ:).com plans to open retail grocery stores through the merger of its 7Fresh supermarket unit with other business lines such as its group-buying arm Pinpin, a company spokesperson said on Monday. Beyond opening actual stores, the new division will explore innovative retail models, the spokesperson told Reuters, confirming reports in local media. Yan Xiaobing, who was previously responsible for the online e-commerce platform’s international division, will take charge of the business and report to Xu Ran, CEO of JD.com, the spokesperson added. This latest development comes after JD.com laid out an ambitious 20-year blueprint earlier this month to build seven enterprises that will be valued at more than 100 billion yuan ($13.83 billion) each. The company faces an increasingly competitive landscape, with Chinese consumers able to choose from a growing range of platforms including JD’s main rival Alibaba (NYSE:) Group, PDD Holdings’ Pinduoduo (NASDAQ:) and ByteDance’s Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok. JD.com created 7Fresh in 2017 after Alibaba introduced Freshippo, a premium physical grocery store. Alibaba said last month that it plans to kick off an IPO process for Freshippo soon as part of the company’s restructuring.
In 2017, JD spun off its logistics unit into a standalone unit. It also plans to spin off its property and industrial units and list them on the Hong Kong stock exchange in deals worth $1 billion each, Reuters reported in March. ($1 = 7.2308 renminbi)