It is one of the most eagerly awaited retail events for some time. Next month sees the official UK launch of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com’s online-only brand Joybuy. The platform will carry more than 100,000 products, ranging from smartphones to baby wipes, tins of tomatoes to kimchi-flavoured crisps.
JD.com, which is not related to JD Sports, is the largest retailer by revenue in China and is valued at £250 billion on the Nasdaq stock market. In the UK it has already teamed up with Morrisons to sell the supermarket’s own-label products in a wholesale deal similar to Marks & Spencer’s tie-up with Ocado.
But its real target is Amazon, JD.com’s much bigger rival, which dominates online shopping and which last week overtook WalMart as the world’s biggest retailer by revenue.
Founder Liu Qiangdong, also known as Richard Liu, is often called ‘China’s Jeff Bezos’ after his Amazon counterpart. Despite standing down as chief executive in 2022, he reportedly still runs the Beijing-based company from London, where he oversees launch preparations as executive chairman.
These have involved hiring more than a thousand staff, including retail veteran Matthew Nobbs as managing director, and buying a string of warehouses and depots to build a distribution network for next-day – and in some areas same-day – delivery.
Its business model is different from that of controversial Chinese fast-fashion retailers Shein and Temu, who mainly source their goods in China, and are known for producing high volumes of products at very low cost.
Expanding: JD.com boss Richard Liu is often called ‘China’s Jeff Bezos’ and aims to conquer Europe
By contrast JD.com is building on its long-standing relationships with big European food and general merchandise brands such as Unilever, Diageo and L’Oreal by stocking their products in its sheds.
It means Joybuy takes the inventory risk of carrying all that stock but it also has control of its own supply chain and logistics, bypassing costly intermediaries.
But the high-profile UK and European launch risks being overshadowed by the spotlight that has been suddenly thrown on one of JD.com’s most senior executives.
Amanda Thirsk is JD.com’s managing director and its head of international business development who is said to have been closely involved in a possible bid by the Chinese firm for British electrical retailer Currys in 2024.
Trusted aide: Amanda Thirsk with Prince Andrew in 2019
She is best known, however, as a close aide to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince who was arrested last week on suspicion of misconduct in a public office before being released as investigations continue.
Having joined the prince’s office in 2004, she served in the Royal Household for 16 years, becoming his private secretary in 2012.
In her role as his trusted adviser she communicated with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, arranging meetings and inviting him to Andrew’s 50th birthday party years after his conviction.
Thirsk is mentioned 64 times in the explosive Epstein Files released by the US Department of Justice, which is now being pored over by nine UK police forces investigating claims of child sex trafficking, leaking confidential information and historic abuse.
In one email from February 2010 Andrew appeared to send a confidential Treasury briefing on the economic crisis gripping Iceland to his financier friend Jonathan Rowland. At the time the UK and Iceland were embroiled in a diplomatic row over British savers’ deposits lost in Icelandic banks in the wake of 2008’s financial crisis. Andrew asks Thirsk, his then deputy private secretary, to request an update from the Treasury.
On February 8, 2010 she wrote to Michael Ellam, the Treasury’s director general of international finance: ‘The Duke of York met with the Prime Minister of Iceland at Davos and would very much like to receive an update note on the latest position between the UK and Iceland on the matter of the deposits and the deposit scheme.’
When a Treasury official replied with a note, she forwarded it to Andrew, who passed it to Rowland, whose bank had bought assets from a failed Icelandic lender a year before.
Andrew told him: ‘I pass this on to you for comment and a suggestion or solution? Amanda is getting signals that we should allow the democratic process happen before you make your move. Interested in your opinion? A.’
An investigation by The Mail on Sunday in 2019 also revealed that Thirsk forwarded Rowland a Foreign Office cable that included details of talks between Andrew, who was Britain’s trade envoy at the time, and leading Chinese politicians. The cable was marked ‘sensitive’ and meant for Government officials.
Rowland was with Andrew on a taxpayer-funded mission to China in 2010 and used his access to try to land clients for Rowland’s Banque Havilland, a private bank.
Leaked documents reveal how after the three-day visit Thirsk forwarded Rowland a cable written by Sebastian Wood, the UK’s ambassador to China. Wood had sent the telegram almost a month earlier to London via the Foreign Office’s secure system. The cable detailed face-to-face talks during the trade visit with Wang Qishan, China’s vice premier, and Chen Deming, the commerce minister.
Thirsk was asked by The Mail on Sunday if it was appropriate to forward the Foreign Office cable to Rowland. She has yet to respond.
As the prince’s right-hand woman, Cambridge-educated Thirsk later ran Andrew’s Pitch@Palace venture – a Dragons’ Den-style showcase for budding entrepreneurs. The role involved running its international arm for more than three years from 2017, and included cultivating high-level business contacts in China. But she lost her job as Andrew’s trusted private secretary in 2019 after the disastrous Newsnight interview, which she was blamed for orchestrating.
Thirsk, who was played by Keeley Hawes in the Netflix film Scoop and Joanna Scanlan in Amazon’s drama A Very Royal Scandal, resigned from her job at the helm of Pitch@Palace a year later before joining JD.com, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Sources at JD.com say she is only indirectly involved in Joybuy’s UK launch. But the timing of Andrew’s arrest and the renewed focus on her past career as his most loyal assistant is unfortunate.
What impact, if any, revelations about Thirsk’s historic ties to the former prince have on would-be customers remains to be seen. In the meantime, JD.com is pressing ahead with the Joybuy launch.
A spokesperson for JD.com said: ‘We look forward to launching Joybuy in the UK and Europe, offering great value, high-quality brands and products to customers, all delivered same, or next day.’
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