Alibaba Group news

Alibaba has launched a blockchain-based food tracing system with several Australian and New Zealand businesses. End to end traceability New Zealand businesses Fonterra and New Zealand Post, and Australian businesses Blackmores and Australia Post are the first to be involved in Alibaba’s Food Trust Framework, Alibaba’s blockchain-based food tracing system. According to the businesses in...

Alibaba Group has announced plans to invest in Huitongda Network Co, an ecommerce retailer that specialises in distribution to rural areas. 200m rural customers Huitongda is a subsidiary of household appliance and consumer electronics online retailer, Jiangsu Five Star Appliances. With 200 million rural customers in 15,800 townships and villages in 18 Chinese provinces, it offers financia...

Alibaba Group has spent $9.5bn, acquiring the remaining shares in Ele.me, a food delivery platform in China. Focusing on last mile delivery Ele.me, which means ‘hungry yet?’ enables people to order food online and have their orders delivered in around 30 minutes by its delivery service, Fengniao Delivery. The service, which operates across China, has a fleet of 3 million delivery people on ...

Hema Fresh has introduced 24-delivery services in its 25 stores in Beijing and Shanghai. Available for most products Users of the Hema app who live within a 3 kilometre radius of a store can now get the same 30 minutes delivery service between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. as well. The new offering includes most items in the store, except for some fresh produce. Delivery time for cooked meals, whic...

The trend for online retailers to establish a “real world” store network continues to gather pace in 2018. Alistair Balderson, IGD's Head of Supply Chain Insight, looks at some recent developments.   Last week the two major Chinese online retailers were in the news. Alibaba announced the expansion of their Hema supermarket chain with 30 new stores to be opened in Beijing during 2018. And JD...

Alibaba plans to open 2,000 branches of its Hema Fresh supermarket in China over the next three to five years. From 22 to 2,000 By the end of 2017, Hema would be operating 22 stores in Beijing, Guiyang, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen. In December, it opened its second store in Ningbo and will open another outlet in Suzhou by the end of the year. The aggressive expansion plan shows Alibaba'...

Chinese online retail giant, Alibaba, is to invest RMB100bn (US$15.2bn) in its logistics network over the next five years. 24-hour order fulfilment Alibaba intends to use the investment to strengthen its global logistics network, enabling it to fulfil orders in China within 24 hours and globally within 72 hours. The retailer will increase R&D investment in logistics data technology, developin...

Ecommerce giant Alibaba has opened another three Hema Fresh stores, advancing its ‘new retail’ strategy, which aims to reinvent retail. What’s Hema Fresh? Hema Fresh was founded by Hou Yi, a former executive at JD Logistics, the logistics arm of Alibaba’s rival JD.com. The first Hema Fresh store was opened in Shanghai in January 2016. Alibaba bought into the company soon afterwards. It curre...

E-commerce giant Alibaba is investing further in the offline sector by taking 18% stake in Lianhua Supermarket to build its "new retail" model. The deal Alibaba spent an estimated but unspecified amount of over HK$630m (US$80.88m) for an 18% stake in Hong Kong-listed Lianhua Supermarket, and became the second-largest shareholder of Lianhua. Alibaba bought the Lianhua stake from Shanghai Yig...

Following IGD’s announcement that China’s online grocery market will more than double by 2020, Suzannah Murphy looks at the challenges and opportunities that arise from exponential online growth.   Here at IGD, we recently carried out research into China’s online grocery market. Last week, we released new insight: we forecast that China’s online market will more than double by 2020 – from 3...