Speaking at 2018 Boao Forum for Asia, the omnichannel smart retailer, which has two public companies in China and Japan respectively, released its reports in a panel session at the event.
The session, entitled "Intelligent Industries Serving for Better Life" shared the game with a new White Paper on Smart Retail in 2018, recently launched on 9th April 2018.
Retail conference
The owner of Suning.com, a Fortune Global 500 company, detailed its findings in Boao a town in south China's Hainan Province. Taking place between 8th -11th April, the 2018 annual BFA conference themed "An Open and Innovative Asia for a World of Greater Prosperity" strives to discuss China’s 40 years of reform, opening up and innovation.
Encountering business of today, Suning put forward the transformation relating to today’s tech-driven industry and its influence on emerging trends in today’s retail environment.
"The advent of smart retail is about the datamation of all the retail factors including products, logistics, check-out process, and achieving more intelligent sourcing, selling and services, seeing applied technology innovations including omni-channels, internet-of-things (IoT), big data analysis, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) becoming ubiquitous,” stated Sun Weimin, Vice President of Suning.com.
“The linear model of make-sell-consume will be superseded by one of experience-buy-make. The core purpose is to continuously provide better products and services to boost consumer satisfaction and industry benefits, creating better life experiences for people in the context of consumption advancement,” Weimin reiterated.
Recent whitepaper
The ‘2018 Better Life - Smart Retail’ whitepaper was launched at the event. It demonstrates research findings relating to the smart retail practices of the industry giants including Suning, Alibaba and JD.
It examines future trends, forecasts, opportunities and challenges for the industry, relaying the realistic smart retail ecosystem in China dedicated to consumers, enterprises, experts and professionals.
Exploring Chinese consumers as a whole, it comments on how the “pursuit of better lives and quality shopping experiences will be the impetus for further development in smart retail, while tech innovations and the capability to integrate all consumption factors and scenarios is critical”.
As it strives to progress its smart retail approach, Suning, an O2O retail company, will integrate its modern business strategies to the forefront. These namely include Suning Cloud Store, Suning.com Direct-sales Store, Suning unmanned Biu store, Suning Ji Wu and SuFresh.
The China-based retailer has developed a strategic approach that will offer a smart solution to ushering in a 3D-printing era of the retail industry. It also plans to open 15,000 Internet-connected stores within the next three years, in line with its wider goals of establishing a total of 20,000 in operation by 2020.