The company operates its own fulfillment network and logistics infrastructure, and owns the inventory for a sizable portion of its sales. These strategies attract merchants and consumers who demand high-quality goods. However, it bears noting that Pinduoduo hasn’t lost its edge in number of user accounts: as of Q4 2020, Pinduoduo had about 720 million accounts while JD.com had 417.9 million.

The company’s focus on building out a logistics company – JD Logistics – for third-party sellers is a means to differentiate itself in China’s cut-throat e-commerce market. Focusing on same-day and next-day deliveries and investing in automated logistics warehouses, JD Logistics raked in 73.4 billion RMB ($11.4 billion) as revenue in 2020, a 47% year-on-year rise. Despite being one of only 4 courier companies in China retaining normal business during the pandemic and a flush of orders bringing down per unit cost, JD Logistics reported a 4 billion RMB loss ($621 million) in 2020, more than the 2.2 billion RMB ($342 million) loss the year before. Also, the logistics arm remains cripplingly dependent on JD.com’s business: more than 50% of JD Logistics’ revenue came from JD Group and other affiliated companies.

Over on the Western Hemisphere, Shopify has been an upstart in a business landscape that wasn’t supposed to be quite as cut-throat. Offering online retailers a suite of services including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools, Shopify’s growth story has been nothing short of stellar. Heralded as a saviour of small businesses during the pandemic and from the monopoly of the likes of Amazon, more than 1.7 million businesses in approximately 175 countries are using the company’s platform as of May 2021.