Alibaba plots digital revolution

E-commerce giant plans to penetrate offline stores

Tmall Vice-President Wang Yulei discusses the company's plans for Singles Day at a news conference on Tuesday. Provided to China Daily

It seems that just being China's e-commerce king isn't good enough for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

After helping more than 80,000 online retailers sell goods across China, the company plans to team up with more brick-and-mortar stores with the goal of revolutionizing the nation's retail industry.

Ahead of Singles Day, which falls on Nov 11, Alibaba has for the first time invited about 30,000 offline stores to participate in the nation's largest online shopping spree.

Shoppers are encouraged to check out the real items in physical stores, put their favorites into online shopping carts by scanning two-dimensional bar codes and buy their choices on Nov 11, when huge discounts will be offered.

"With more and more people shopping online, the business of brick-and-mortar stores has been challenged by online rivals. We want to put an end to that by integrating the online and offline shopping experiences," said Zhang Yong, chief operating officer of Alibaba.

With the growing popularity of mobile Internet use, the line between online and offline shopping will be blurred.

"Rather than having e-commerce, the entire retail industry will be digitalized in the future," he said, adding that Alibaba wants to help digitalize traditional offline retailers and help them be more Internet-savvy.

He didn't go into details, saying that Nov 11 would be just kind of a test. He said that the company plans to cooperate with more offline stores and give them digital upgrades, either on their supply chain management or membership management.

The competition between online retailers and brick-and-mortar stores is getting increasingly fierce in China. Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao marketplaces reported a combined 19.1 billion yuan ($3.12 billion) in daily sales for their Double Eleven promotions, double the revenue generated by the United States' Cyber Monday, which is the Monday after Black Friday, the Friday following Thanksgiving.