Alibaba partners Bailian Group to boost retail expansion agenda

As per the deal, the companies leverage their troves of consumer data in order to integrate offline stores, merchandise, logistics and payment tools to deliver a better overall shopping experience, insideretail.asia reports.

Alibaba has been taking steps to combine its Tmall and Taobao ecommerce platforms with bricks-and-mortar stores, most notably in January 2017 in its offer to privatise Chinese shopping mall operator Intime Retail. A surge in mobile internet usage – Alibaba has 500 million monthly active mobile users – and the growth of big data capabilities is driving this new “omnichannel” shopping experience as a way to better meet consumer demand, the company has said.

Now, Alibaba wants to bring Bailian and its 4700 stores across 200 Chinese cities and autonomous regions into the fold as well.milestone in the evolution of Chinese retail, where the distinction between physical and virtual commerce. As part of the deal, Alibaba and Bailian will co-design bricks-and-mortar stores that merge offline and online shopping and services to improve the buying experience for consumers.

They will also combine their membership bases to deliver enhanced customer service through technologies such as geolocation, facial recognition and big-data driven sales and customer management systems. In addition, there are plans to make Alipay, the online payments app owned by Alibaba affiliate company Ant Financial, available at all Bailian stores, while Bailian’s Safepass and Bailian OK Card payments services will be integrated with Alipay. The companies will also partner on logistics to boost efficiencies in deliveries, as well as research and develop new retail-related technologies in AI, big data and the Internet of Things.