JD.com is a leading e-commerce platform in China with over 1 million daily transactions and a market capitalization of over 10 billion U.S. dollars as of 2019 year-end.
Liu has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Peking University in 1986 and a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
While there, Liu came up with his key business strategy – use its low prices to build volume and then use its volume to increase its purchasing power with suppliers to reduce its product cost even further.
This strategy has allowed the company to charge significantly lower prices than its major Liu is also known for their philanthropy. In both 2015 and 2017, J.D. Group donated 1 million RMB to the earthquake relief fund in Nepal. It makes Liu one of the most respected business leaders in China.
He started his career at Oracle immediately after graduation, then a couple of years later, he moved on to found Jingdong while studying at the University of Illinois.
His company would later take its name from his online username – J.D., meaning Richard, and D, meaning Ding. JD618 grand promotion to the shares in 2014.
In October 2014, Liu sold his shares worth 70 million U.S. dollars to Alibaba Group and, by 2015, changed its name to J.D., meaning Richard.
In 2017, J.D. was listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange for the first time. Liu is thought to be China’s second-richest person, behind Jack Ma of Alibaba.
It has its headquarters in Beijing and Shanghai. JD holds an outsider’s advantage over Alibaba because it is not as well known in China and, as such, is sometimes referred to as ‘the ghost of Alibaba.’
Liu says his company’s goal is to create a culture of creativity, innovation, and individuality with the help of employee suggestions.
Richard Liu often encourages his employees to embrace their individuality by wearing unusual hats at work, for instance, this blue beret or this red fedora.
Richard Liu’s father was the founder of the real estate company Xinhua Holdings, responsible for constructing China’s first modern skyscraper, the Beijing World Trade Center.
His father died when Liu was 15.
JD.com is Richard Liu’s brainchild, and he remains its leader to this day.
When Liu graduated from the University of Illinois, he returned to China, where he started up his first company Jingdong, which means ‘customer site’ in Chinese.
JD.com began its first offline consumer sales in a joint venture with Suning the same year.
Liu’s JD has also been a prolific investor in companies such as Uber and Airbnb.
JD has invested a total of $200 million in Airbnb since 2016 and sits on Airbnb’s board of directors.
Liu has said that due to Alibaba’s superior reputation, J.D. is better placed to take market share in China and expand internationally at a more excellent pace than Alibaba and other competitors such as Tencent.
JD is also on Alibaba’s Ant Financials board.
Liu has been the recipient of several awards and accolades: In 2015, Richard Liu launched JD into the U.S. market with a partnership with Walmart, Amazon, and Sam’s Club, which supported its online commerce platform in the United States and Canada, beginning to compete more directly with Amazon.