Joybuy is readying to introduce third-party sellers to its online stores across Europe, The Grocer can reveal.
The full-category e-commerce site and app owned by China’s biggest retailer by revenue, JD.com, is planning to sell products it doesn’t own as stock, from both European and Chinese brands. These products will be both held within Joybuy’s warehouses and delivered directly to consumer doorsteps from suppliers.
On launch in March, Joybuy distinguished itself by operating as a retailer, rather than with the marketplace model used by other Chinese e-commerce brands like Temu, Shein and Alibaba, where goods are sent directly from brands and manufacturers to consumers.
It is understood the company will heavily curate and vet the selection of third-party sellers, an approach similar to that taken by Tesco with its marketplace.
“We are working with trusted brands to test a curated marketplace in the second half of 2026,” a Joybuy spokesperson confirmed to The Grocer.
The company will test the marketplace model later this year and is currently recruiting for a cross-border marketplace chief, tasked with “driving Chinese sellers to export in international markets”. It is also recruiting for marketplace chiefs in the UK, France and Germany, tasked with expanding Joybuy’s range, and maintaining seller quality, price competitiveness and availability. It is understood the roles will report to Federico Scioli, who joined JD.com in March as MD of marketplace international from AirBnB.
Last year, JD.com founder Richard Liu criticised the cross-border drop-shipping model used by many of its competitors as a “race to the bottom,” adding that “cheap goods severely harm our national image”. He told local media of his ambition to introduce 1,000 Chinese brands – many of them with “product quality that often already surpasses that of western brands” – into overseas markets within five years.
Joybuy launched earlier this year in the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, offering a range of more than 100,000 products across categories including ambient and frozen foods, household, baby, beverages, personal care, beauty, health and petcare, as well as consumer electronics, homeware and appliances.
“Our competition is everybody,” Joybuy UK’s country manager and MD Matthew Nobbs told The Grocer at the time. “It is one-stop shopping…You should be able to get pretty much everything you’re going to need in your everyday life, and with speed.”
Earlier this year, The Grocer revealed Joybuy – which promises shoppers a “better, more joyful way to shop online” – had been working to set up direct supply relationships with several major brands, with many suppliers saying they were negotiating with the company to establish the direct supply of goods into its network of UK warehouses.
During the testing phase of Joybuy’s new marketplace approach, it is expected most suppliers and brands will deliver into JD.com’s warehouses in Milton Keynes and Luton in the UK, as well as its distribution hubs in the Netherlands, Germany and France.
Joybuy’s owner JD.com – which has more than 700 million active customers in China – in 2024 considered making an offer to acquire Currys and last year entered advanced negotiations with Sainsbury’s to acquire Argos. The Argos deal collapsed soon after being announced, with Sainsbury’s saying the terms were not in the best interests of its shareholders.
Late last month, the European Commission opened an investigation into JD.com’s €2.2bn acquisition of German consumer electronics and home appliance retail giant Ceconomy due to concerns JD.com may have received subsidies from the People’s Republic of China for the takeover bid.
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