The Amazon of China is in Crisis

JD.com is having a difficult start to 2019. From rebounding from a #MeToo crisis to critical failures in how they treat workers, JD.com had a morale crisis.

JD.com is planning to cut up to 8 percent of its workforce, or more than 12,000 people, first reported by the Information.

They have told managers it is looking to reduce headcount across the company, cutting some teams by as much as half. The company is also reneging on some work contracts and offering affected college graduates token compensation.

JD has an incredible business model, logistics strategy and future but it's still not profitable and with the rise of Pinduoduo and China's razor competitive E-commerce and delivery market (think Meituan), it has come under increased pressure in recent times. In spite of this, JD.com's stock is up in 2019 by a significant margin.

n total, JD.com could cut up to 8% of its 150,000-plus workforce, or more than 12,000 jobs, according to investors in the Nasdaq-listed company. There was social media outrage recently at some of the weird things JD.com's C-suite have been saying about how hard workers have to hustle. JD has not manged the PR crises of late with much poise.

The threat of firings has walloped morale and prompted many to explore employment elsewhere, according to the people. JD.com must compete with Alibaba directly and that's never an easy feat even to maintain its marketshare. In recent months Tencent and Didi have also slashed their workforces, possibly due to impact from the Trade wars and a bizarre 2018 for many of these companies.

It’s reportedly come under fire publicly for also effectively trying to lower the salaries of its couriers -- once a source of company pride. JD.com is a bit like an immature Amazon without the cash-cow that is AWS and Wall Street having its back no matter how it treats its warehouse, part-time and seasonal workers. JD.com also has to exist in a much more competitive Chinese E-commerce market.

JD is now threatening to fire people that exhibit four kinds of behaviour: arrogance, complacency, over-spending on expenses and failing to deliver on initiatives, said one of the people who saw the internal notice. Meanwhile JD expects its delivery folk to endure incredible hardships while maintaining the ability to "struggle" through.

There's also an executive exodus at JD.com where between March 15 and April 5, JD announced that CTO Chen Zhang, General Counsel and Chief Human Resources Officer Rain Yu Long and Chief Public Affairs Officer Ye Lan were departing, all citing personal reasons. 2019 is shaping up to be a transitional year for JD.com, which is interesting to watch for the future of retail.

I'm always writing about innovation, business and the future of companies on Medium. As well as covering the top trends in technology, retail, the stock-market and social media.