FROM CHRISTINE CHOU | ALIZILA | http://bit.ly/2xD8phA

#Inside home times: #Alibaba's vision of the #furniture #store of the #future

Home Times, a furniture store supported by Alibaba Group technology, has opened for business in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.

Attracting between 1,500 and 3,000 daily visitors since opening, the furniture store is another example of Alibaba’s  New Retail model. In recent months, Alibaba has expanded that model out to a variety of sectors, following the success with its hyperlocal Hema Supermarkets, which have shown how analytics and technology can transform traditional grocery stores into a seamless online-offline customer experience.

Over 20,000 items are available for purchase at Home Times, including furniture, kitchenware, home décor, stationery and travel essentials—a majority of which are sourced from merchants already selling through Alibaba’s B2C shopping platform Tmall.

And a phone in hand is all it takes for seamless shopping. Shoppers scan each item’s QR code with their smartphones to see the product name, price, description, and instantly purchase using Alibaba’s mobile payment service Alipay. “We have the hardware and know-how to build New Retail-driven stores, and we work with partners that have access to offline channels and expertise in operating physical storefronts,” said William Chen, who heads the Home Times project at Alibaba’s Cloud Retail division. “We provide the technology and Tmall’s pool of consumer insights.”

Tmall analyzes the behavior and preferences of users within a five-mile radius of the shop. Products are then handpicked from these users’ top preferred categories and added to store shelves. This system cuts the time required to source products worldwide for traditional retailers down to a single day, while store offerings will change every 10 to 15 days, added Chen.

Each product has an electronic price tag that can automatically sync prices with the latest seen online, removing the need for staff to manually print and replace the labels.

Large screen displays on the wall allow customers to see their desired furniture and décor in a virtual home setting. This also indicates that Home Times requires significantly less display space, compared to traditional furniture sellers, since products can be displayed virtually.

Home Times is set to open two new branches in Hangzhou by the end of 2017, including one at the In77 shopping center in the Hubin business district and another at an undecided location in West Hangzhou. It plans to open 15 to 20 new stores in 2018.

“We definitely want to open this system to more businesses. Plans to apply our New Retail infrastructure to industries beyond home furnishing are underway,” said Chen.

FROM NAOMI GRAY | MARKET REALIST | http://bit.ly/2vW7Rn5

#Alibaba Opening Physical #Mall in #China

Alibaba (BABA) is building its first China-based physical mall, according to a report in China’s finance newspaper Caixin. Operating a physical mall would be a significant step in Alibaba’s efforts to blur the line between online and offline trade.

Alibaba’s opening of a physical mall would also highlight the growing importance of physical locations to e-commerce companies. Amazon (AMZN), an Alibaba rival, has also been working to expand its physical store footprint. It has opened several physical bookstores and localized order collection hubs. The acquisition of Whole Foods Market is expected to further expand its physical store presence.

Whole Foods, which Amazon acquired for $13.7 billion to bolster its push into grocery, operates 460 stores. The upcoming Alibaba mall, to be called More Mall, will sit on a two-acre plot. The More Mall could open in April 2018. Like Amazon, Alibaba is eyeing the grocery market as it seeks to diversify its product offering and expand its market share. Alibaba’s China retail sales rose 57.0% to 36.7 billion yuan, as shown in the above chart.

As part of its grocery push, Alibaba runs a grocery concept under the Hema brand. The More Mall is expected to bolster Alibaba’s expansion into the grocery industry. In their grocery push, e-commerce providers are realizing that physical stores are indispensable. Amazon is battling for a share of the more than $800.0 billion US (SPY) grocery market against the likes of Walmart (WMT), Costco (COST), and Kroger (KR).