Do you think this is a trend?

have eroded brick-and-mortar market share. Protected behind the Great Firewall from outside competition, these tech disruptors— Alibaba and Tencent focus primarily on e-commerce

15% of all retail, a significant bump from 2012 but hardly a sea change. Despite doomsday warnings, retail in China is not dying. Shoppers continue to demand physical stores—to touch and feel, socialize, ask questions, and have an experience that can’t be replicated online.

“New Retail”—in his words, “the integration of online, offline, logistics and data across a single value chain.” Considering that Alibaba already accounts for more than one-tenth of China’s total retail sales (including 75% of online sales),

Already, the company is moving fast: In little over a year, Alibaba has gone from opening its first physical store to acquiring a major department store chain, Intime Retail, for $2.6 billion.

The new partners will share offline retail branches, merchandising capability, logistics and technology. They are already designing new retail outlets together and developing retail technologies incorporating big data and artificial intelligence.

By enlisting big data, Alibaba aspires to do nothing less than reinvent retail—merging online and offline to form a new unichannel

accumulate even more fine-grained data on consumer behavior

How has Alibaba disrupted the retail scene in China?

How do the lessons tie in with being marketing oriented?

First decide who it wants to serve (market segmentation) followed by cultivating sectors (target marketing). Followed by differentiating and positioning.

Marketing concept o Determine needs & wants of target markets & delivering them more effectively & efficiently than competitors o Create, build, & maintain beneficial exchanges with target buyers to achieve organizational objectives o Recognize needs not just product-based o Long-term brand loyalty inculcated by meeting & exceeding consumer expectations o Customer Driven: Creates products that meets current needs