WPP Digital Launches Polestar in China

New Joint Company to provide integrated solutions in country’s fast-growing e-commerce space

(SHANGHAI, 24 September 2014) – WPP Ventures, the investment division of WPP Digital, announces the launch of a new joint company in China, Polestar Co. Ltd., a startup company offering integrated e-commerce solutions in China’s booming e-commerce sector.

WPP Digital takes a minority stake in Polestar. The new company will be led by its principal investors — founder, Figo Yang, who will serve as CEO, and Allen Liu, COO. Both are successful entrepreneurs who bring together years of e-commerce expertise gained at Alibaba, Netease, Yahoo!, HP and UTC. Yang was also a founder of Wang Cang, China’s first company to automate and systematize critical warehousing operations in the e-commerce sector.

China’s e-commerce market is the world’s largest, having surpassed the US in 2013, with Chinese online shoppers forecast to spend RMB3.3 trillion in 2015 (US$540 billion), according to Bain & Co. Despite the country’s fast-growing e-commerce sector, China lacks companies that currently provide integrated e-commerce solutions.

Polestar, in conjunction with WPP companies, will work with Chinese and international brands to establish and manage all aspects of their Chinese e-commerce operations, from marketing through to purchase, fulfilment and delivery, across multiple consumer platforms such as Alibaba’s Taobao (C2C) and TMall (B2B), JD.com and the mobile messaging service WeChat.

Polestar is also developing products and services in the emerging O2O (online to offline) sector, including an e-commerce data management platform allowing clients to track, measure and optimize their e-commerce operations.