General
Amazon just celebrated its 25th anniversary. In that short time, Jeff Bezos' creation changed retail forever. But more than that: the company has made an indelible mark on the global economy. Is the world getting divided between Team East and Team West?
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Tmall, the online platform for Western Alibaba brands, is updating the look of its virtual shops. The new concept, Flagship Store 2.0, offers more personalisation, brand experience and augmented reality.
Roland Palmer will be stepping down as CEO of Alibaba in the Benelux, and he will be the last one to have held that position: the region will be broken up, with Belgium and Luxemburg being assigned to France. Meanwhile, Tmall is still expanding with an anglophone portal.
The list of biggest retailers in the world is dominated by American companies, with Walmart and Amazon at the top. While challengers from China are continuing to rise, Belgian-Dutch Ahold Delhaize climbes to fourteenth.
Chinese retail giant Alibaba is looking at the possibility of a flotation on the Hong Kong stock exchange. The company is looking to raise billions in extra capital and become less dependent of the United States by appealing directly to Chinese investors.
After an analysis of the general terms and conditions on the AliExpress website, a group of consumer organisations say that Alibaba fails to live up to the European consumer rights regulation.
In its last financial year, Alibaba saw its turnover and profit reach double-digit growth again. Pushed by new algorithms, conversion rates in China soared - making it the only branch of the company that is already profitable.
Cosmetics
Will WeChat creator Tencent become Kruidvat's co-owner? The Chinese tech company is considering taking an interest in A.S. Watson, the group behind the drugstore chain. Tencent's rival Alibaba is also interested.
Chinese internet giant Alibaba is looking for a new source of revenue: it has opened a "hotel of the future" in Hangzhou, brimming with its own technology.
Store chains pay far more taxes than internet platforms, which is untenable - according to Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard. He is therefore in favour of a tax that will bring an end to this fiscal imbalance, which is tabled in France but rejected for the whole EU.
American Office Depot and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba have set up a joint e-commerce platform aimed at small and medium-sized companies.
Food
Sun Art's French CEO is to step down and be replaced by a Chinese successor. The retail group is in French (Auchan) and Chinese (Alibaba) hands, and this move turns out to be proof that China is anything but an easy market for Western companies.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba saw its turnover grow by 41 % in the past quarter. Analysts are still worried, as this is the lowest turnover increase in three years' time.
The big platforms are growing in might and are able to gain control over the Dutch and Belgian online retail as well. Non-food retail now finds itself on the eve of a new battle, ING writes in a new report.
The award-winning book, written by RetailDetail's very own Jorg Snoeck and Pauline Neerman, continues its conquest. Following the successes of the Dutch, English and French version, there is now also a translation in Chinese.
Today, 42% of all global e-commerce is happening in China, so it is already moving onto the next chapter: from people’s back pockets into their bodies. Huge leaps forward are being made in the fields of facial recognition, biohacking and robotization.
