In China, the so-called ‘New Retail’ sector is organised around two behemoths. These are Alibaba in Hangzhou and rival Tencent in Shenzhen, the local Silicon Valley. Altogether, they control 75% of China’s total e-commerce market, and 86% if we include China’s B2C online retail market. Such groups are unrivalled in the Western world. These are also the fastest companies in retail to multiply by alliances and partnerships. Faced with such agility, it seems that Facebook, Amazon and Google have missed an opportunity. “Creating a similar equivalent of Tencent or Alibaba would mean merging Amazon and Facebook, but it would still be uncomplete compared to these Chinese players”, said Marcos Gouvea de Souza at the C.I.R.I.S. conference during late April in Shanghai.
On one hand, these two companies are expanding investments in ‘brick & mortar’ retailers.
