A new supermarket chain has opened its doors in China, blending online and offline retail.
7Fresh, owned by ecommerce giant JD, in which Walmart has a stake, will feature innovations such as smart shopping trolleys that follow customers around.
The first branch, which has just opened in Beijing, also includes ‘magic mirror’ screens which sense when shoppers pick up an item and then display information such as provenance and nutritional data.
Items can be scanned and bagged by self-checkout using facial recognition, and payment can be made using the retailer’s app. Customers’ shopping can be delivered to their homes in 30 minutes.
The venture is the latest example of the online to offline trend, as retailers increasingly seek to bring digital and ecommerce capabilities and insights to bear in bricks-and-mortar stores.
It is a trend being adopted by retail’s new powerhouses: from Amazon in the West, which has bought the Whole Foods grocery chain; and Walmart, which last year snapped up Jet.com; to Alibaba in the East, which has invested in food retailer Sun Art alongside Auchan.
In the UK, former pureplays such as Missguided are also now developing store networks.
7Fresh chief executive Xiaosong Wang said: “JD is uniquely positioned to bring this premium-quality offline shopping experience to Chinese consumers because of our supply chain technology and scale as the country’s largest retailer.
“With the highest efficiency and the greatest knowledge of consumer preferences, as well as access to the highest-quality products, we can invest in a premium experience far beyond anything Chinese consumers have experienced before.”
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