China’s tech groups are redefining shopping with stores where you can buy, eat, pick up or take home delivery of, say, Alaskan crab — experimenting with retail in ways that blur the physical and virtual boundaries of shopping.
Ecommerce companies and retailers across the globe are integrating online shopping more deeply into bricks-and-mortar stores. That drive has seen China’s Alibaba buy physical spaces and Amazon offer $13.75bn to acquire Whole Foods. It has also prompted traditional retailers such as Walmart to ramp up their online offerings, and internet groups such as Google to enter the fray.
But while Amazon’s main move at Whole Foods has been to cut prices and introduce Prime membership — for which subscribers receive perks in exchange for an annual fee — Alibaba, which runs two of China’s biggest ecommerce platforms, has launched a 20-strong chain of Hema hybrid grocery stores. The shops allow customers to take their purchases away with them, have them delivered, or eat them on the premises.