Making another push into the UK, JD.com sets its sights on veteran online retail platform The Very Group

According to recent reports from British media, JD.com is evaluating an acquisition of the longstanding UK online retail platform The Very Group for approximately £2 billion. Sources indicate that the Carlyle Group, the American private equity giant currently holding a controlling stake in the group, has officially initiated the sale of the asset, with the overall valuation fixed at around £2 billion.

This is not JD.com’s first interest in the UK retail market. Previously, JD.com bid for UK electronics retail giant Currys in 2024, and engaged in acquisition talks for Argos with Sainsbury's in 2025, but both attempts ended in withdrawal.

If this acquisition of The Very Group proceeds to a substantial stage, it will mark JD.com’s third major merger attempt in the UK market. From probing to repeated actions, JD.com’s penetration of the European market is moving from a trial period to a new phase of heavy asset transfer and localized operations.

Judging by the quality of the target asset, The Very Group is not simply an online traffic retailer. The company, with roots tracing back to 1923, is currently one of the largest integrated online retail platforms in the UK, with its main brands being Very and Littlewoods.

Financial data shows that The Very Group has annual revenue exceeding £2 billion, about 4.4 million active customers, and EBITDA reaching £307 million in fiscal year 2025.

For JD.com, the group’s core moat lies not only in its product supply chain of nearly 2,000 brands, but also its deeply integrated consumer finance services with its retail business—the group offers “buy now, pay later” and revolving credit loans through its Key Pay platform.

With high customer acquisition costs and fierce local e-commerce competition in the European market, directly acquiring a platform with 4.4 million financially sticky active buyers is akin to JD.com leapfrogging the lengthy cold start cycle.

At the same time, The Very Group’s compliance credentials and experience in consumer finance locally are a rare asset that Chinese cross-border e-commerce companies find it difficult to build for payment ecosystems in the UK.

Competing for The Very Group is a piece of JD.com's recent grand European strategy.

At a famous sharing session a year ago, JD.com founder Richard Liu Qiangdong was outspoken: "The most important business for JD in the future is international business."

At the time, Liu Qiangdong also clarified the direction, stating, "JD's international business will not follow the cross-border e-commerce model. My international business strategy is local platform, local team, and local procurement."

It is clear that, driven by a sense of crisis around zero-sum competition, JD.com's approach in Europe has distinctly departed from the early "light asset" overseas exploration, instead adopting a “acquire local giants + build heavy asset supply chain” hard-entry mode.

Over the past year, JD.com has made extremely dense and aggressive moves in Europe.

In the second half of 2025, JD.com spent about €2.2 billion (roughly RMB 18.5 billion) to acquire 85.2% of Ceconomy, Germany’s consumer electronics retail giant, bringing MediaMarkt and Saturn—two well-known 3C brands in Europe—and thousands of offline stores under its control.

Following this infrastructure foundation, in March this year JD.com's cross-border e-commerce platform Joybuy officially launched in six European countries including the UK, Germany, and France, and activated self-operated overseas warehouses equipped with automation devices in Milton Keynes and Luton, UK.

JD.com is attempting to replicate its highly regarded domestic “self-operated + self-built logistics” model in Europe. If the Ceconomy acquisition solidified JD.com’s basic 3C appliances base in Europe, then targeting The Very Group is a key step for JD.com to supplement a “multi-category supply chain” and “localized user mindshare” in the UK market.

The Very Group’s advantageous categories are highly concentrated in fashion, beauty, home, and toys. This structure highly aligns with JD.com’s strategic goal to shed its “pure 3C digital platform” tag and focus on high-margin fashion industries in recent years.

JD.com’s ambitions in fashion and luxury have been planned for some time.

In recent years, Zhang Zetian, JD.com’s fashion brand expansion advisor, has been frequently appearing in international fashion circles, serving as JD.com’s "investment officer" overseas.

From attending the Cannes gala in 2023 to support the fashion luxury business, to prominently appearing as an official advisor at Paris Fashion Week this March—sitting front row at designer Uma Wang’s show and interacting with top media executives such as Vogue—her series of public moves signal JD.com’s ongoing intent to upgrade its brand within European luxury and fashion sectors.

If The Very Group is brought under JD.com, JD.com could quickly strengthen its discourse power in Europe’s fashion supply chain, and leverage the group's rich local mid/high-end fashion resources to boost the main apparel and beauty business at home, creating synergy between domestic and overseas markets.

Despite the clear strategic logic, the acquisition and operation of cross-border retail assets still pose severe objective challenges for JD.com. The difficulty in integrating cross-border mergers and acquisitions is well acknowledged.

The Very Group is a century-old traditional British retailer whose corporate culture and organizational structure create natural barriers to the “high turnover, strong execution” business model typical of Chinese internet giants. Many past cases of domestic companies going overseas have seen integration failures caused by cultural conflicts.

In addition, The Very Group is highly reliant on consumer finance. Given that the UK Financial Conduct Authority is tightening regulation on “buy now, pay later” products, compliance costs and bad debt risks are quietly rising.

Overall, JD.com’s £2 billion acquisition evaluation of The Very Group is another strategic charge after repeated tests in the UK market. This fully reflects JD.com's urgency and determination to seek a second growth curve abroad, amid fierce red-ocean competition among domestic e-commerce players.

But in a mature and highly competitive European market, buying heavy assets is only a ticket to entry. The true core that will decide whether JD.com's overseas campaign succeeds is how well it integrates the hundred-billion-scale local retail system with JD.com’s digital supply chain.

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