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Experience What The Future Of Retail Shopping Is Like At Alibaba's Hema Supermarket:

9 Cool Ways Alibaba is Redefining Retail Stores

Perhaps a trip to China is in order if you want to see what the future of how integrated onliine and offline retail, distribution and dining looks like. When it comes to combining digital and offline retail, China is thought to be two to three years ahead of the supermarkets in other parts of the world.

Freshippo, Hema's English name, is a high-tech supermarket built around your smartphone. Your smartphone is used for everything in the store, from placing items in a digital shopping cart while you shop for groceries, to getting product nutritional information, to paying for your goods.

Hema is part of Alibaba's "New Retail" strategy. According to Jack Ma, "the confluence of online, offline, logistics, and data across a single value chain." It's a project aiming at bridging the gap between online and offline retail, as well as digitizing stores for a better consumer experience. True to form Hema stores also double as fulfillment centres for Hema’s online grocery orders.

Hema stores also serve as fulfillment centers for Hema's online grocery orders. Alibaba Group President Michael Evans stated of Hema stores, "Consumers don't think about the world online versus offline."

Millions of people have registered on the Hema Xiansheng App, allowing customers to enjoy the Hema Xiansheng shopping experience. More than 60% of the total value of Hema supermarket products comes from online ordering.

To understand how fast Alibaba is expanding these stores, consider the fact that Amazon has opened 8 Amazon Go stores and Alibaba has opened 100 Hema fresh supermarkets. The growth of Hema stores does not seem to slow down anytime soon, as Alibaba plans to open 2,000 such stores by 2023.

Alibaba is successful in designing stores around smartphone with the high use of mobile phones in China. If you are curious about the future of retail shopping, here are some cool features to consider:

1. Scan and go. To shop at Hema, customers must download the Hema mobile app. After downloading, customers make purchases by scanning the QR code on each item they wish to purchase and then the item is added to their digital shopping cart. Scanning a product's QR code can also provide customers with information about the product, including how fresh it is (by checking when the product is delivered to the store). Other available data includes nutritional information, customer reviews, recipes customers can use to make the product, and delivery options if the customer wants the item delivered to their home.

Alibaba's success in designing stores around smartphone apps is partly due to the high use of mobile phones in China. Most of the Internet traffic in China comes from mobile phones, while the United States only accounts for 48% of Internet traffic.

2. Personalized shopping recommendations using artificial intelligence. The Hema app can also remember shoppers' buying behaviour and use machine learning to provide customers with personalized product recommendations.

3. Digital price tags. The product has a digital price tag that can be updated in real time. For example, if Hema wants to update seafood prices based on market prices, they are especially useful. It also allows retailers to ensure that online prices match in-store prices when necessary.

4. Stores serves as online fulfillment centres. Employees pick orders online at the retail store, and once they are collected, they are placed on to an overhead conveyor belt system that transports the order to the back of the store in preparation for delivery.

5. Digital payments including facial recognition. When customers finish shopping, they pay with Hema's mobile app, which is linked to Alipay. Alipay, founded by Alibaba, is an online payment application with more than 1 billion monthly active users.

It is the largest online payment platform in the world, with more users than PayPal. At Hema Xiansheng stores, if conditions permit, customers can choose to use facial recognition payment technology to pay.

In supermarkets, kiosk cameras screens scan customers’ faces. Then, use facial recognition payment technology to verify the identity of the customer. Customers can also enter their phone number at the self-service terminal as a fraud protection measure.

Initially, digital payment was the only option for Hema's clients, but clients were opposed to this and the Chinese government considered this practice to be illegal. Hema supermarkets now also accept cash.

6. Super fast delivery (even faster than Amazon). If the delivery address is within three kilometers from Hema Xiansheng store, customers who shop at Hema Xiansheng can receive grocery delivery within 30 minutes for free. This applies to customers who shop in a store and want to ship their orders home or shop online. This service is even faster than Amazon.

7. Stores serves as delivery hubs for other retailers. To enhance its distribution capabilities in China, Starbucks added Starbucks distribution kitchens in some Hema Xiansheng stores in 2018. The partnership allows Starbucks to use Hema Fresh's delivery capabilities to quickly and efficiently complete Starbucks online orders.

8. Experiential retail. Hema supermarkets are essentially grocery store / restaurant hybrids Customers can buy food there or sit down for dinner with their families if they wish. Customers like the fact that they can easily choose a piece of fresh seafood and then prepare it fresh for the customer to dine at the restaurant.

9. Automated service using robots. In one of Hema’s supermarkets there is a restaurant called Robot.He Most of the dishes here are delivered to customers by robots. The restaurant is not fully automated, and employees can attend to customers questions and do the cooking.

If you want to have a place in the robot restaurant, you need to register at the kiosk using the Hema app. When customers arrive at your table, they only need to scan the QR code on the table, and of course they can use the Hema app to order food.

If you want to experience what makes shopping in Hema a great experience, just like watching this video. Experience a futuristic digital shopping experience in one of China's most popular shopping destinations.

Hema Video Link : https://youtu.be/uEbYNJZ9iJ4 🍿🥂🍬🍏

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