• Company Updates
JD.com launches milk tea house to develop smart business
By Liu Yiyi ( chinadaily.com.cn )
Updated: 2015-05-14

Liu Qiangdong, CEO of JD.com cut the ribbon of the JD+ Smart Milk Tea House located on Zhongguancun Entrepreneurship Street on May 8, marking the corporation's further development in the smart industry.

Yu Jun, acting director of Haidian District of Beijing; Guo Hong, director of Zhongguancun Administrative Commission; Xu Xin, CEO of Capital Today; Liu Qingfeng, CEO of iFLYTEK Corporation; and officials of Beijing Science and Technology Commission attended the ceremony.

As a personalized ecological service in smart hardware industry, the JD+ aims to integrate resources in the smart industry, brings services to hardware corporations in different development stages, and establishes a smart hardware eco-system.

In Haohai Building, the JD+ Smart Milk Tea House is a physical store operated by the smart department of JD.com. It will not only become a business incubator, but also will serve as a space to launch new products, road shows, and experiments. It will also be a perfect place for communications, negotiations, and announcements.

The milk tea house exhibits a series of smart products, including smart mugs that connect to other mugs through JD.com applications, smart soymilk makers, smart body fat scales, smart radios, and robots that can speak, walk, and identify faces.

Liu remarked that the Internet brings huge opportunities for entrepreneurs. JD.com will comprehensively develop hardware industrial chain to provide services including incubation and finances.

In the other hand, entrepreneurs should make more efforts to develop and upgrade products, to focus on consumers' needs, and to bring the largest value to consumers through connecting different kinds of products.

JD.com also established an institute for public entrepreneurship. Aiming to encourage the general public to get involved in start-ups, the institute is both a comprehensive ecological service platform and an engine for economic development.

China's smart hardware market saw 280 percent growth in 2014. JD.com found problems such as homogenized competition and product isolation. The milk tea house will assist entrepreneurs in the development of corporations which have differentiated products.

The entrepreneurs are able to get information and resources from the milk tea house. In addition, their start-ups have the opportunity to join the JD+ Incubator.

Moreover, the place is also a communication platform for smart hardware enthusiasts to meet newly launched smart products. For industry insiders, the milk tea house helps them build networks and get consulted.

The JD+ incubator not only provides entrepreneurship tutors, investment, financing, and workplaces, but also offers resources and services based on JD.com.

As JD+ develops in Beijing and Shenzhen, the teams can move to different workplaces in different development stages. In addition, JD.com offers free segmented marketing statistics to entrepreneurship teams to help with product analysis and positioning. Furthermore, entrepreneurs are able to enjoy the free smart cloud services and integrate statistics with partners.

JD+ incubator provides even more important services such as helping start-ups to set up the entrie JD.com purchase and sales system to complete the sales circulation. According to JD.com's plan, the incubator will cultivate more than 100 new start-ups in the smart industry over next three years and will provide the teams with financing resources to reach goals.

The process of starting a new business is tough. JD.com says it will help businesses win over markets and customers based on JD.com's differential resources.

The incubator will recruit domestic and foreign start-ups two months after the opening of the milk tea house. The first projects will be incubated in July, and JD.com will invite tutors to give courses on smart device design and investment in the coming two to three months.

Wang Zhenhui, director of JD.com's smart business, said that JD+ Smart Milk Tea House is part of the JD+ Strategy. The milk tea house connects smart device start-ups and JD.com's resources in the corporation's smart ecosystem.

Wang also emphasized that the milk tea house will provide financial support to investors. The corporation will cooperate with strategic investment resources in the industry and will launch investment and financing negotiations in the "financial corner" in the milk tea house.

Experts said that JD.com provides smart ecological services in statistical analysis, technological support, resource integration, and investment.

The milk tea house will accelerate the growth of both entrepreneurs and start-ups. The services bring them closer to the industry, investors, and the market. In this way, more outstanding smart hardware products and technology will appear.