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Chinese E-commerce Giants Expand to Europe Amid U.S. Tariff Pressures

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BusinessHonor: China E-Com Eyes Europe Market

Business Honor
08 September, 2025

Chinese firms like JD.com scale up logistics and retail presence across Europe.

As tensions in China-U.S. trade continue to weigh on global supply chains, Chinese logistics and e-commerce companies are looking to Europe now. As U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs remake the market, Europe presents itself as a growth region of prime importance for Chinese companies such as JD.com. In the UK alone, Chinese firms have taken on more than 2 million square feet of warehousing space in 2025, a figure that will soon overtake the 2.3 million square feet taken on at the height of the pandemic in 2021. This is part of a bigger trend right across Europe, where Chinese online retail giants are building out their logistics platforms to reach new consumers. Europe is still the only big market left where Chinese companies are able to expand rapidly, claims Claire Williams, UK and European industrial research head at Knight Frank.

JD.com, China's largest e-commerce platform, is at the forefront. Already, the company has rented 900,000 square feet of space in the UK, among Coventry and Milton Keynes distribution centers. JD.com's new platform, Joybuy, offers discounted items such as food, clothing, and groceries, a sign of its expanded footprint in European retailing. This growth is due to Chinese manufacturers looking to diversify away from the U.S. market, which raised tariffs on Chinese exports. In this move, logistics companies and property developers in Europe are noticing growing demand from Chinese firms. For instance, CTP NV, the largest publicly traded industrial property developer in Europe, has had a sizeable increase in leasing business from Chinese firms, especially in the furniture and computer industries. As Chinese e-commerce players compete to gain market share in Europe, their fast growth is transforming the region's logistics sector and increasing competition in the European retail sector.