Beyond borders... Alibaba is "the Amazon of China," with one key difference: Alibaba.com is a marketplace that connects over 1B buyers and sellers — it doesn't actually own any of the merch (no "Baba Basics"). While Alibaba trails Amazon in many respects, it has it beat on grocery stores. Before we get into the meat of that, let's talk alt-meat:
- Beyond Meat will start selling its meatless patties in Alibaba's Freshippo grocery stores.
- Back to Freshippo. Think of them as those human-free, cashier-less Amazon Go stores, but kicked up a dozen notches.
More like "the Amazon of the Future"... Alibaba launched Freshippo in 2016 to pioneer the "New Retail" concept. Think: mobile-order products, unmanned checkouts, and hot food lockers. Now it has over 200 Freshippos, all aimed at creating a world where: "the boundary between online and offline disappears" (would watch that movie).
- Freshippo locations serve as both store and warehouse — 30-minute delivery is available for online orders (if you're within a 2 mile radius). Conveyor belts on the ceiling carry your bagged goods out for delivery.
- Online orders make up over 60% of Freshippo's total sales — you can order a sandwich from your phone in a subway car, and pick it up in a hot locker at the next stop.
- The offline experience is wild too: Robots deliver food in some of Freshippo's restaurant spots. Customers can pick live lobster out of fish tanks. There's also the option to pay with your face (maybe stick with the app).
It's all about the daily touch points... The more touch points you have with a company's products each day, the more intimate that customer-company relationship is. Companies like Apple and Amazon have high daily touch points. But operations like Freshippo bring that daily interaction to another level. That intense interconnectedness is what Amazon is trying to achieve with its Go stores (and everything else it does), but Alibaba is far ahead.