(Source: Inside Retail Asia | January 4, 2019)
In a move to further expand the firm’s “boundary-less retail” strategy, Chinese online retail giant JD has opened two new innovative stores at Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) and Hohhot East Railway Station in Inner Mongolia.
The JD travel retail stores use the e-commerce company’s latest retail technology in order to make it easier and more enjoyable for travelers to purchase on the go. The openings add airports and railway stations to JD’s offline retail offerings, which already include convenience stores, supermarkets, and partnerships with hotels.
JD’s BCIA pop-up store, which will operate for three months will offer popular travel items such as daily necessities, clothing, mobile accessories, beauty products, and bags and suitcases. The store uses JD’s smart store technology to understand how customers interact with products as well as which products to offer them. The integrated JD Zu Chongzhi platform can analyse customer behavior and traffic flow, such as generating heat maps, in order to assist with product selection and inventory management, ensuring smooth store operations.
The 100 sqm. unmanned Hohhot East Railway Station JD travel retail store opened in partnership with China Railway Express. It also makes the most of JD’s technological capabilities, with features such as facial-recognition payment and smart vending machines. Later, the store will make use of a Mini Program in WeChat so that customers can choose to buy on the spot and take their purchases with them, or shop online and have them delivered to a convenient location.
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