JD.com launches new technology as it continues push for offline stores
JD.com has launched a new technology, Take, which leverages big data to bring the precision of online shopping into the physical offline space.
China's ecommerce giant JD.com is expanding into bricks and mortar retail
The technology is being used in JD.com’s retail experience shops in Beijing and Shanghai as part of the companies push into offline retail.
Earlier this year, the ecommerce giant partnered with rural convenience store owners to launch branded stores across China, with an aim to launch one million branded stores over the next five years.
It comes as rival Alibaba continues its push to merge online and offline retail with the launch of seven new Hema stores, as well as its plans to open a shopping mall in Hangzhou.
The Take technology uses sensors to track customer behaviour in-store and provide insights on product selection and placement within stores. It will also help optimise marketing and enable JD to better calculate offline conversion rates.
When a customer picks up a product instore, a nearby tablet will automatically play a video introducing the products features and specifications. The aim of the technology is to use the customer data and insights to improve the offline shopping experience.
Zhang Bing, head of retail innovation at JD Electronics, said: “With ‘Take’ and other advanced technologies, we’ll be able to better understand what our customers want when they shop offline. We can then deliver that to them in store with the same precision they’re used to when they shop online.”
JD.com, which is China’s largest retailer and its second largest e-commerce company, has been investing in technology recently inking partnership deals with search giant Baidu to leverage big data and AI, as well as teaming with Nielsen to track the online shopping experience.