China Spreads (a shopping) Revolution to the World

by fulltimestudent 4 Replies latest jw friends

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  fulltimestudent

  Using the internet to market and sell goods is big business in China. Company's like Tencents and Jack Ma's Alibaba are changing retailing in China and they say they will promote it all over the world.

  But to get a sort of insight, here's a short video on the opening (in Shanghai, last week) of the world's largest Starbucks and only that chains second Reserve Roastery store (the first was in Seattle). Go full screen to get the full impact.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9JbcpOR2lw&feature=share
  

  As you saw, this Shanghai outlet is powered by Alibaba's retailing concepts.

  And, when it comes to retailing religion and you see JW.com switching to the Alibaba techniques*, (grin) you'll know that Jack Ma will have have converted the WT to his idea of a Retail paradise. There will be no need for YHWH's long promised Divine paradise when a virtual reality will let you experience paradise in the here and now.

  * Nothing strange about that, after all it's arguable that Joe Rutherford's long friendship with William Heath (a CC heir) and Coca Cola's policy of continuous advertising that led old Joe to "Advertise, Advertise, Advertise the King and the Kingdom."
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  fulltimestudent

  How is i supposed to work?

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sdszMUiT08
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  fulltimestudent

  Does it work?

  Well, the Double 11, 24 hour sale frenzy a few weeks back saw shoppers in many countries buy Aust $ 33 billion worth of stuff in just 24 hours,

  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-13/chinas-singles-day-smashes-retail-records/9144040
  

  Alibaba Economy at scale. 11.11 demonstrates the technological innovation and global scale of the entire Alibaba Economy. More than 140,000 brands and hundreds of millions of consumers will participate in 11.11 this year. This shopping festival will be supported by Alibaba’s global cloud, payment and logistics infrastructure.

  Consumers will enjoy seamless payment and consumer loan services provided by Ant Financial. Alibaba Cloud will serve as the core technology and computing backbone to ensure the best consumer experience throughout the festival. Cainiao Network expects over 3 million logistics personnel to facilitate the hundreds of millions of packages that will be generated from the festival.

  The number of annual active consumers on Alibaba’s China retail marketplaces reached 488 million, an increase of 22 million from the 12-month period ended June 30, 2017. See the performance highlights of Alibaba in Q3 2017 here.

  Power of the Chinese consumer. Alibaba expects that hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers who visit its platforms on November 11 will have access to over 60,000 international brands and merchants to satisfy their increasing demand for goods and products from around the world.

  This year, Tmall will, for the first time, leverage its popularity outside China to bring over 100 domestic Chinese brands to international markets, targeting millions of overseas Chinese consumers in Asia and the rest of the world.

  New Retail implementation. Alibaba’s New Retail model with integrated online-offline customer offerings will be showcased in store locations across China. More than 1,000 brands will convert nearly 100,000 physical locations into “smart stores” and our channel distribution solutions make it easy for more than 500,000 local neighborhood stores and Rural Taobao service centers to sell to consumers in lower-tier cities and rural villages.

  Read more: https://www.chinainternetwatch.com/22791/double-11-2017/#ixzz511Jjp800
  
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  Listener

  That's a novel way to sell their products at Starbucks but I wonder how many people would be interested in going into their store and wasting time looking up items and info on their phones.

  Call me old fashioned but I'd prefer to see items with labels and a short description physically next to or on it.

  Like everything, a new craze comes out and the crowd gets excited. Some work and some don't.

  Twenty years ago I could never have imagined being able to order groceries online and having it delivered. We've got to wait until the next day but that's not much of a problem.
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  fulltimestudent

  Listener: That's a novel way to sell their products at Starbucks but I wonder how many people would be interested in going into their store and wasting time looking up items and info on their phones.

  Yup! Doesn't appeal to me either. I go to a coffee shop to buy coffee and maybe a quiet chat with a friend, not for entertainment. I guess this is another form of "shopping as entertainment" that has been changing retailing and moving it off the main street and into malls for quite a few decades (and definitely did not originate in China).
  

  But it also could be seen as "the smart phone as a disruptive device." And from that viewpoint we are likely to see lots of changes. Lots of people are now using their smart phones to pay, (a system that I guess was pioneered through eftpos).

  And, In Australia (and probably many other nations) the government has been thinking about going digital with eht Aussie dollar:

  A discussion here: https://theconversation.com/why-the-rba-would-want-to-create-a-digital-australian-dollar-86621

  And just 2 days ago there was a report that one day the may print less banknotes (or, maybe none) - that would be a significant change. How would old people cope with that. Hey! I don't even own a smart phone.

  And sometimes I wonder about them. When I visit China, some people are very kind to me, but I sat in a restaurant once for 2 hours while someone tried to use their smartphone to buy two tickets for us and book seats on a train for us to go back to Shanghai. And, the station was only a 10 minute drive away.

  But, OTOH, who could've imagined back in the 1980's that the postal service (as a means of communicating) would disappear. But who sends letters now? Emails superseded mail, and now emails are being superseded by the smart phone.