In this edition of Weekly Focus APAC: Alibaba Partners with Office Depot to Widen SMB Reach; Chope Targets Chinese Tourists with Food Delivery Partnership; Tmall Aims for 1,000 Stores with Cosmetic Brands; JD.Com Has Eye on Luxury Fashion Through Farfetch; and Indonesia Health Tech App Snags £49.19m in Series B. Alibaba Partners with Office Depot to Widen SMB Reach U.S. retail chain Office Depot has joined hands with Alibaba to broaden their online offerings for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). The alliance aims [...]

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In this edition of Weekly Focus APAC: Potential Walmart Exit Posed as Players Work to Comply with New India E-commerce Rules; SingPost Pledges to Make Delivery Amends; Indonesia Coffee Chain Rides on Grab Delivery; and Online Fashion Retailer Snags £175m in Series D. Potential Walmart Exit Posed as Players Work to Comply with New India E-commerce Rules As market players work to comply with India’s new e-commerce rules, suggestions have emerged that Walmart may abandon its Flipkart acquisition deal in response to [...]

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In this edition of Weekly Focus APAC: Lazada Eyes SEA E-Supermart Growth with RedMart Integration; Alibaba’s Commerce Business Grows 40%; Singapore Launches Integrated Viewership Tracker; AirAsia Flies with AI-Powered Chatbot; and JD.com Takes Off with Drones in Indonesia. Lazada Eyes SEA E-Supermart Growth with RedMart Integration Lazada Group has unveiled plans to expand its supermarket business across Southeast Asia with the integration of e-grocer app, RedMart, into its online retail platform. From 15 March, RedMart customers in Singapore will have to purchase their [...]

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What key trends will play out in the Asia-Pacific retail tech landscape this year? And should brands go direct or tap aggregated e-commerce sites to engage consumers? RetailTechNews spoke with these industry experts and players for their insights and predictions: – Jet Jing, Alibaba’s president of Tmall – Satish Meena, Forrester’s senior forecast analyst – Alban Villani, Criteo’s Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan managing director – Jennifer Arnold, SAP’s Asia-Pacific Japan and Greater China vice president of marketing for customer experience RetailTechNews: What key [...]

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In this edition of Weekly Focus APAC: Mobile to Lead Online Retail in APAC Markets; APAC Firms Believe Customer Experience Still Not Integrated & Centralised; DBS Pilots QR ‘Angbaos’ for Chinese New Year; and Alibaba Expected to Grab 9.3% of Global Digital Ads. Mobile to Lead Online Retail in APAC Markets Mobile will lead online retail sales this year in Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as in Australia and India next year, as Asia-Pacific consumers increasingly turn to e-wallets. Mobile-commerce already is [...]

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In this edition of Weekly Focus APAC: Singapore Pilots Locker Service to Support E-Commerce Growth; Starbucks Brews Up Virtual Store with Alibaba; JD.com & Intel Launch IoT Lab for Smart Retail; and Lazada Replaces CEO After 9 Months. Singapore Pilots Locker Service to Support E-Commerce Growth Singapore has launched a pilot for a last-mile delivery service that aims to offer parcel collection points in public spaces across the city-state. Called ‘Locker Alliance’, the service was introduced to support the growth of e-commerce [...]

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Daily deals app Fave is amassing a wealth of data and aiming to tap these customer insights, as well as industry partnerships such as Grab and Alipay, to boost returns for its merchants. Such efforts would include further enhancements to a dashboard, Fave Biz, designed specifically for merchants to access data intelligence and improve their service offerings, Ng Aik-Phong, managing director of Fave Singapore, said in an interview with RetailTechNews. The company’s roots began in 2015 as fitness platform KFit, before [...]

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The direct-to-consumer (DTC) business model is something on most retailers’ minds at the moment. Here, we talk with Liam Brennan, global director of innovation, MediaCom, to discuss how seriously traditional brands should be taking the DTC revolution, how best to incorporate it into their business, and in what ways traditional retail still trumps DTC.  RetailTechNews: Can you explain where BLINK sits within Mediacom, and how your role interacts with traditional and DTC retailers? Liam Brennan: MediaCom BLINK enables clients to embrace innovation linked [...]

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Alibaba Group has chalked up ¥213.5bn (£23.81bn) of gross merchandise volume (GMV) on its annual 11 November Singles Day Shopping Festival, crossing one billion in delivery orders for the first time this year. Also coined ‘11.11’, the event marked its 10th iteration this year, having started out in 2009 as an initiative to increase awareness of online shopping amongst Chinese consumers. Back then, 27 merchants participated in the shopping festivities. This year, more than 180,000 brands were on board, up from [...]

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In this edition of Weekly Focus APAC: Singapore Shoppers Want Unified Retail Experiences; Indonesia Sets Up Shop on Tmall; APAC Travellers Using Corporate Cards for Personal Purchases; and Alibaba Annual Active Consumers Hit 601m. Singapore Shoppers Want Unified Retail Experiences Singapore shoppers look for speed, ease, and delivery of their choice and will reward retailers that provide these services with their loyalty. For instance, 28% of consumers in the country said the ability to pay in-store for items that were not in stock, [...]

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