Alibaba partners with retailer Bailian

Alibaba and China-based retailer Bailian will working together to “explore new forms of retail opportunities across each other’s ecosystems”. Aliababa said that the two companies will “leverage the power of big data to achieve integration between offline stores, merchandise, logistics and payment tools with the ultimate aim of elevating efficiency and overall consumer experience”.

Headquartered in Shanghai, Bailian is one of China’s largest retail conglomerates with more than 4,700 outlets across 25 provinces, 200 cities and autonomous regions in China.

Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group said: “New retail reimagines the relationship between consumers, merchandise and retail space by leveraging mobile Internet and big data. It will upend the traditional manufacturing and supply chain, the connection between merchant and consumer, as well as the overall consumer experience.

“Businesses will increasingly embrace big data and new innovations to better identify, reach, analyze and serve their customers, and their digital transformation will be empowered by Alibaba’s ecosystem. Our partnership with Bailian is an important milestone in the evolution of Chinese retail, where the distinction between physical and virtual commerce is becoming obsolete.”

Ye Yongming, Chairman of Bailian Group, added: “A new consumer era calls for a new retail approach. Traditional commerce needs to embrace innovation and change to thrive if they are to ride atop this new consumption trend. New retail is not just the convergence of online and offline worlds. It also means we need to be able to leverage technologies such as the Internet of Things, AI and big data to provide consumers with new and immersive shopping experiences across channels and product categories anytime and anywhere. It is with this shared vision that our companies have joined forces in this strategic partnership to redefine commerce and reshape the retail industry.”