How China is leading the ‘new retail’ revolution

Edward Tse and Jackie Wang say market moves by Chinese firms like Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com show how key players are experimenting with various forms of tech-driven ‘new retail’ in the O2O world, making the industry more dynamic than ever

Reading Time:4 minutes

Published: 5:20pm, 27 Dec 2017Updated: 7:06pm, 27 Dec 2017

Eventually, retail will be merely one layer of the consumer lifestyle, albeit a high-frequency one. Illustration: Timothy McEvenue

While the past two years may have been brutal for brick-and-mortar stores worldwide, China’s online and offline retailers have witnessed a “new retail” revolution, driving an increasingly stronger national consumption.

Since China launched economic reforms in 1978, the country’s retail industry has undergone multiple stages of development.

With foreign retailers flooding in after China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, the scene was diversified. Offline retail started to be challenged by Taobao, Alibaba’s online shopping platform, which was founded in 2003 and grew exponentially in the following decade. The transaction amount for Alibaba’s “Singles’ Day” 24-hour online sales each November 11 has grown from 50 million yuan (HK$59 million) in 2009 to 168 billion yuan this year (Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post).

With e-commerce booming, businesses have been adopting an “online to offline” (O2O) model, using online channels to attract offline traffic. In the past few years, this phenomenon has evolved into the notion of “new retail”.

Watch: Shopping by app in new retail

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