This week, Grab and Fave have formed a new partnership that aims to grow the companies’ online platforms and services in Singapore and Malaysia. Under the alliance, daily deals site Fave would integrate GrabPay and GrabFood on its platform, enabling its merchants to access Grab’s e-payment and food delivery services. Grab also would integrate the Fave mobile deals on its app and enable its GrabPay users to purchase Fave deals. This would be facilitated through GrabPlatform, which is a suite of APIs [...]

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This week, Singapore electronics retailer Audio House has rolled out a new payment system that lets customers scan QR codes to complete their purchases; and they can do so using their own banking apps. Audio House said it had adopted NETS QR payment platform, enabling shoppers to select the payment mode at the cashier and scan the QR code displayed on the terminal to initiate the payment process. Developed by payments vendor Network for Electronic Transfers of Singapore (NETS), the QR platform [...]

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This week, Alibaba Group has unveiled a one-year leadership succession plan as its executive chairman, Jack Ma, prepares to leave the company he co-founded and hand over the reins to current CEO Daniel Zhang. Ma, whose face and name have become synonymous with the e-commerce giant, will remain in his role until 10 September next year to ensure a smooth transition to Zhang, according to Alibaba. The announcement, which was released on 10 September when Ma celebrated his 54th birthday, also revealed [...]

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This week, JD.com has teamed up with several hotels to showcase its technologies and marketplace products, enabling guests to purchase items they find in their rooms. Selected rooms at these partner hotels including Wanda, Sheraton, Beijing 5L, and Greenland, would be suited up with products identified to be popular amongst travellers, such as power banks to charge their devices, a Philips Sonicare electric toothbrush, and JD.com’s smart speaker cum personal assistant device. The Chinese e-commerce giant said it introduced the programme [...]

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This week, Google has unveiled a rebranding of its digital payments service and plans for further expansion of the platform in India, where consumers have made more than 750 million transactions with the app. Called ‘Tez’, when it was launched in the country last September, the payments platform since has chalked up more than 22 million users – including 1.2 million local businesses – each month, according to Caesar Sengupta, Google’s general manager for payments and the company’s next billion [...]

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This week, JD.com unveils a new blockchain platform that it says is aimed at helping companies access and develop their own applications on the technology to better secure their operations. The new platform allows businesses to create and modify smart contracts as well as streamline operations, such as track-and-trace movement of goods, transaction settlement, and authentication of certifications. It also will enable businesses that lack the necessary capabilities to access and tap blockchain technology for their own applications, according to [...]

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This week, ride-sharing operator Grab has further expanded its offerings to include grocery delivery as well as unveiled a suite of APIs (application programming interfaces) to allow other companies to integrate their services with Grab’s platform. The grocery service, called GrabFresh, is delivered through a partnership with Southeast Asian grocery delivery provider, HappyFresh, offering a range of more than 100,000 products from 50 supermarket and speciality grocery chains. Orders will be fulfilled by GrabExpress drivers and delivery partners, which can be [...]

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This week, we find out that online shoppers in Asia-Pacific are most likely to abandon their carts, with 52% doing so, compared to 46% in North America and 43% in Europe. Moreover, just 25% in this region expressed interest in recommendations they saw online half the time to almost all the time, revealed SAP’s Consumer Propensity Study, which polled more than 20,000 online consumers worldwide, including eight Asia-Pacific markets: Singapore, Thailand, Australia, China, India, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. Some 46% [...]

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This week, Alibaba’s logistics arm has announced plans to build a logistics hub in Hong Kong, setting aside USD$1.53bn (£1.14bn) for the new development, while JD.com has turned on an AI system to ‘speed-write’ product descriptions and shopping guides. To be located at the Chinese territory’s international airport, the project will be spearheaded by Alibaba’s Cainiao Network and its joint venture (JV) with China National Aviation Corporation and YTO Express. Cainiao owns a 51% stake in the JV, while China [...]

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This week, online consumers in Australia learn that they soon will no longer be able to shop on Amazon.com’s international sites – a result of the e-commerce giant’s move to sidestep the country’s new GST rule. From 01 July 2018, Australians will be barred from shopping on Amazon’s U.S. and other international websites and be automatically redirected to the local platform, which offers a smaller inventory. The move is a response to the country’s new GST rule that will see a [...]

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