Chinese e-commerce sector returns retail to stores

CGTN photo

Alibaba’s 2017 Global Entrepreneur Conference was held in Hangzhou on July 11. Under the theme of “Made in Internet”, CEOs and founders of e-commerce and tech giants, like China's Alibaba, Xiaomi and India's Paytm attended the conference.

Retail has recently become as hot as AI and VR among tech investors. Many e-commerce firms are stretching their feelers out from the cloud down to the ground with landmark M&As.

Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong introduced five new aspects in his speech, namely big data, new tech, new devices, new financing tools, and restructure goods and markets. He said that staff-less stores may be a new way to redefine grocery shopping.

Meanwhile, by studying consumer behavior data, companies can “then design, market, sell and serve in order to satisfy customers,” Zhang added.