Alibaba uses big data to integrate e-commerce with brick and mortar shopping

Alibaba is making a new move to integrate e-commerce with brick and mortar shopping. The company is using big data and tracking of users’ preferences and behaviour in Home Times, a decoration store in Hangzhou, China. Home Times is stocked with more than 20.000 products, many of them features in virtual displays, saving space and providing flexibility to the merchant. Products can be bought with the scan of a QR code, and stocks departments are immediately informed of which items are most popular and need to be reordered quickly.  The store is part of Alibaba’s ‘new retail’ model, which aims to create a shopping environment that merges online commerce with big data and brick-and-mortar.