Walmart and JD.com set to invest $500mn in online grocery industry in China

The United States retail giant, Walmart, and China-based JD.com has confirmed it will invest $500mn in online grocery delivery company Dada-JD Daojia, CNBC reports.

After first partnering with Dada-JD Daojia in 2016, the US retailer opened its first small high-tech supermarket in China where it allows customers to use smartphones to pay for items that can be bought from Walmart’s virtual store on JD Daojia’s platform.

Dada-JD Daojia is JD’s online-to-offline business and was formed following the merge of JD Daojia and large crowd-sourcing delivery platform Dada Nexus.

In a statement, Wern-Yuen Tan, president and CEO of Walmart China, said: "By working with strong partners, and investing in digital capabilities, we will create easier and more convenient shopping experiences for customers.”

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JD.com has received the support of other well-known forces in the technology industry such as Google and Tencent as the Chinese company battles to compete with Alibaba.

The news comes after Walmart announced that it is making it easier for online shoppers to return unwanted items to third-party sellers as its rivalry with Amazon continues, CNBC reported.

Starting in the next few months, customers that buy from third party sites on Walmart.com will have the capability to print shipping labels directly from the website and have access to the return details for every individual product online.