Shuo Digital in the news #1

With the emergence of e-commerce in the whole world, the disappearance of physical stores could have been predictable. However, against all odds, the evolution of consumers’ behavior and  technological advances strengthen the interest on physical stores and allow the revolution of the customer experience. China saw it coming and is now a pioneer in the development of a new era of “physico-digital” business.

 

New retail, the future of business

The growth of this transformation is linked to the very rapid digitalization of Chinese society. Indeed, its population is the most connected in the world. If Chinese people have been known for a long time to always carry important sum of cash while traveling, they now prefer to pay by QR code with their mobile phones. Thanks to the emergence of apps such as WeChat that make almost everything possible – from booking a plane ticket to buying a perfume – Chinese cannot live without their smartphone.

Alibaba, China’s leader of e-commerce, clearly understood the need to redefine business by integrating new technologies. That’s why, in 2016, Jack Ma’s company launched its “new retail” strategy. The aim is to combine big data and technologies to transform online and offline ways to do business. In the long run, it will result in the absence of boundaries between those two worlds, with a whole “physico-digital” fusion.

Read the article on Asialyst.