Yihaodian

Yihaodian (Chinese: 1号店; pinyin: yī hào diàn; lit. 'Shop No.1') is a Chinese online grocery business founded by Gang Yu and Junling Liu in July 2008.[1] Yihaodian is a business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce website that provides people with a platform to shop groceries online. Yihaodian has “virtual stores” that exhibit images of stocked grocery shelves on walls and other surfaces in urban public areas in China, which passersby can scan codes under the images with a mobile device to purchase corresponding groceries online.[2] The retail giant Walmart first invested in Yihaodian in 2011; in 2012, it announced additional investment so that Walmart controlled 51% of Yihaodian’s ownership.[3] In July 2015, Walmart acquired 100% ownership of Yihaodian.[4]

Yihaodian
Native name
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese1号店
Literal meaningShop No.1
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryRetail
FoundedJuly 2008 (2008-07)
Founders
  • Gang Yu
  • Junling Liu
Owner
  • Walmart (2015-2016)
  • JD.com (from 2016)

History

The two founders, Gang Yu and Junling Liu were both former executives at Dell before they established Yihaodian.com. Gang Yu was the vice-president of Worldwide Procurement, while Junling Liu was the president of Dell China.[1] Besides that, before joining Dell, Gang Yu had also acted as the vice-president of Global Supply chain at Amazon, and Junling Liu had been the vice-president at Avaya China.[1] Both of them accumulated rich experiences and management skills from their previous jobs. In 2007, Gang Yu and Junling Liu suddenly announced their resignation from Dell and began to prepare for their own business.[5]

In 2008, e-commerce market in China was dominated by e-commerce companies like Alibaba.com, Taobao and Dangdang. They seized domains in e-commerce respectively: Alibaba for "business-to-business", Taobao for "consumer-to-consumer" and Dangdang for "business-to-consumer".[1] Gang Yu and Junling Liu accurately analyzed the situation of e-commerce in China and they eventually decided to develop the business-to-consumer (B2C) market by introducing a specialized category, "commodity", to the marketplace.[1] Consequently, Yihaodian.com was launched in July 2008.

Merging

In May 2011, the retail giant Walmart first invested in Yihaodian,[3] with aims to integrate its logistics to Yihaodian's supply chain.[6] In 2012, Walmart announced its further investment to Yihaodian under the approval of Chinese Ministry of Commerce, which had led Walmart became the biggest shareholder of Yihaodian (51.3% of shares).[7] In July 2015, Walmart announced full ownership of Yihaodian.[4]

On June 20, 2016, Walmart announced that it was selling its stake in Yihaodian to JD.com in exchange for a 5% stake in JD.com shares. The deal was valued at $1.5 billion.

References
  1. Liu, Jie (September 2012). "The key cornerstones to successful B2C". Proceedings of the CUBE International Information Technology Conference. pp. 618–622. doi:10.1145/2381716.2381835. ISBN 9781450311854. S2CID 13094237. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  2. Millward, Steven (16 October 2012). "China's Yihaodian Plans 1,000 Virtual Supermarkets Where You'll Shop Via QR Codes". Tech in Asia. Yahoo! News. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
  3. Liang, Tao (2012). "Golden Trails: A Roadmap Leading to China's Internet Industry". China's Foreign Trade. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  4. "Walmart Acquires Remaining Shares to Take Full Ownership of Yihaodian e-Commerce Business in China". WALMART.COM. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
  5. "1号店CEO刘峻岭、董事长于刚简介". China Electronic Commerce Research Centre. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  6. Millward, Steven. "Walmart Ups Its Investment in China's Yihaodian, Seeks a Majority Stake". TECHINASIA. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  7. Custer, C. "Walmart Now Owns a Controlling Share of Yihaodian". TECHINASIA. Retrieved 4 April 2013. In
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