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Two years after he introduced the phrase New Retail, it remains a foundational aspect of Jack Ma Thought. And because the Alibaba CEO has considerable resources to disseminate his ideas (via, for example, the PR website Alizilla, research agency AliResearch, and the Tmall annual gala), and to directly shape the future of retail through his business operations, New Retail is a notion that brands, consultants, and marketers cannot avoid.
The basic idea behind New Retail is this. It?s no longer enough to be an online or offline business. You must be both. New Retail requires combining the best aspects of physical retail spaces with the latest capabilities in digital technology. A customer should, for instance, be able to walk into a store, scan a QR code, see product reviews and descriptions, and complete their purchase either there in the store (perhaps via an instant RFID or facial recognition checkout), or when they get home ? on a mobile phone, for instance, or via voice-command using the Amazon Echo or the Tmall Genie. Additionally, in the New Retail future, companies will be better at leveraging data from social media and past purchasing behavior to understand and cater to individual consumer preferences. Physical retail spaces will allow people to have more satisfying, human, meat-space interactions than they would in a hikikomori life lived only through online shopping.
Bain & Company and AliResearch have released a report entitled Embracing China?s ?...