Internet giant Alibaba will soon open its own shopping center. More Mall will be part of its main office in Hangzhou and should enable the company to trial technologies it creates in the recent past, like virtual fitting rooms.
New Retail
The store will be built on a 3,500 sqm location and will have five floors. The shopping center’s interior are currently being finalized, but its opening is only planned for April 2018.
Not only traditional brands, but also several brands found on its eCommerce platform Taobao, will feature in the shopping center. Its very own supermarket chain, Hema, will also have a spot in the shopping center.
The shopping center’s construction is part of Alibaba’s new strategy, called “New Retail”. It wants to bring its online experience and technologies to the physical world, thanks to a range of its own stores. Over the past two years, it already invested nearly seven billion euro into the physical retail industry. It has thirteen Hema Xiansheng supermarket stores and also acquired the luxury department store Intime in January.
