JD.com founder channels Jack Ma in urging staff to fix problems

Workers pose for photos near a display for the annual Singles’ Day online retail extravaganza at the headquarters of ecommerce platform JD.com in Beijing, on Nov 11, 2023. JD and Alibaba have long been the leaders in China’s ecommerce arena, but have rapidly ceded ground to up-and-comers from PDD Holdings Inc to ByteDance Ltd’s Douyin. — AP

JD.com Inc founder Richard Liu urged staff to address deep-seated issues within his ecommerce company, in an internal memo that echoed a call to arms issued by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd founder Jack Ma last month.

Liu was responding to an employee’s post on a JD.com forum over the weekend, in much the same way Ma addressed and amplified an Alibaba staffer’s views about rising competition. The unidentified employee listed a litany of problems from poor merchant support to an overly pricey item list, according to a person familiar with the message thread. The JD founder, apologising for typing while in a car, agreed with that assessment and called for change.