In Part 1, I wrote about hypermarkets as business models. It is one of the few retail business models I kinda like. But it is the combination of Sun Art’s hypermarkets and the Alibaba ecosystem that is really interesting. That combination puts it at the frontier of new retail. And it makes it almost entirely […]
A subscriber suggested I look at Sun Art Retail as a potential investment opportunity. And, wow, thanks for that. There is a lot of fascinating stuff going on with this company. First, the basics of Sun Art. An Introduction to Sun Art Retail Group Founded in 2000, Sun Art is a leading Chinese retailer with […]
Coupang is a South Korean e-commerce company that is building a competitive fortress in its home market. The company has a number of advantages, including economies of scale, a strong distribution network, and a focus on customer service. Coupang is also investing heavily in technology, which could give it an edge over its competitors.
I spent Singles’ Day 2017 visiting Alibaba and meeting with management (see Part 1 and Part 2 here). And one big highlight of the visit was a group influencer dinner with Alibaba Vice-Chairman and co-founder Joseph Tsai. He was always the guy I listened to about Alibaba. Jack Ma is famous but doesn’t really speak the language […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson interviews the Vice President of Cloud & AI at JD.com about how AI is transforming the fashion industry. They discuss three key areas where AI is having an impact: personalization, supply chain management, and product development. For example, AI can be used to recommend products to customers based on their past purchases, track inventory levels and optimize shipping routes, and design new products that are more likely to appeal to consumers.
I had a fascinating discussion with He Xiaodong of JD. He is the head of Deep Learning, NLP and the Speech Lab. And the Deputy Managing Director of JD AI Research. I did a podcast about this called Products with Personalities (Podcast 31) but I wanted to post some of his slides from our talk. […]
Much of our discussion about digital platforms (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.) has been about their business models. And all their strengths, which are formidable. But I haven’t talked much about the experiences of the user groups on these platforms. What does this mean for merchants and brands selling on Alibaba? For restaurants on Meituan? For content […]
Three big things are happening in digital China right now. The coronavirus is radically altering the behavior of hundreds of millions of consumers (and businesses), resulting in what is being called the quarantine economy. Everyone is trying to move from in-person to digital interactions. This shift to digital interactions is supercharging and rapidly evolving China’s […]
The coronavirus quarantine economy has supercharged the growth of live-streaming and KOLs (key opinion leaders) in China. Taobao Live, a live-streaming platform owned by Alibaba, has seen its user base and sales grow significantly in recent months. This trend is likely to continue as the Chinese economy reopens and consumers increasingly turn to digital channels for shopping and entertainment.
A final short discussion about this week’s lecture / podcast on JD vs. Alibaba. And how they compete on different factors. The talk is located here: JD vs. Alibaba: How Retailers and Marketplace Platforms Compete and Evolve in China (Jeff’s Asia Tech Class – Podcast 18) I expanded on this in yesterday’s Daily Lesson, where […]