Tmall, China's largest consumer platform for brands and retailers, today announced that its New Retail technologies and solutions have helped Intersport, one of the world’s biggest sporting goods retailers, to transform its flagship store in China into the first New Retail Megastore for sportswear.
Leveraging Tmall’s full-fledged New Retail infrastructure that covers customer insights, supply chain management, retail technologies, smart logistics and electronic payments, “Tmall x INTERSPORT Megastore” infuses a range of technologies and systems to offer customers a seamless online to offline shopping experience.
“We are excited to see an extensive range of Tmall’s New Retail technologies and features under one roof in Intersport’s store. What’s even more encouraging is to see our merchants embracing the New Retail concept and exploring its potential. When customers try out these features firsthand, we are confident that they will see the convergence of online and offline shopping as the future of retail.” said Jessica Liu, President of Tmall Fashion and Luxury.
“Intersport is delighted to open our first New Retail store in partnership with Alibaba’s Tmall. The world-class technologies from Alibaba’s Tmall will give our customers an entirely new shopping experience and help us link our offline and online activities. Intersport is the world’s leading performance sporting goods retailer and has a long history, dating back to 1968. More than anyone else in the market, we understand the importance of evolving with time, while continuing to offer the best customer experience – something that has always been at the heart of our business.” said Victor Duran, CEO of Intersport.
The 1,300-square-meter two-story Intersport store sits in Qianmen, the historical tourist area of Beijing. Using a number of features powered by Tmall Fashion, it is creating a fun and interactive shopping experience both online and offline:
Interactive Window Displayand AR Engagement: Using motion-sensor cameras, the main window display at the store entrance can identify the gender and approximate age of a passerby and intuitively recommend appropriate products. The interface also displays a QR code that the customer can scan to order the recommended products on the spot through Intersport's Tmall store from their phone. Customers can also collect coupon by completing a fun AR basketball game in the store.
AI-Shopping Assistant and Smart Shoe Mirror: A wall screen mirror will ‘recommend’ items to complement whatever a customer is trying on, offering personalized fashion advice. Using built-in cameras, a smart shoe mirror can detect which shoes a customer is trying on and will offer information about them, as well as recommending accessories.
Smart Shelf and Cloud Shelf: Once a customer takes a shoe off a smart shelf, information about sizes, colors and function will pop up on an interactive wall screen. Through a cloud shelf, customers can also see and learn about products on Intersport’s Tmall store that are not on display. This virtual space expands the available product assortment by four times that which is in the store.
Virtual Shopping Bag and Delivery Services: By scanning QR code, customers can place the item in their virtual shopping bag and make purchase decisions on Tmall later, even after they have left the store. Customers can also shop in the store and request Tmall to deliver their goods to a designated address if they don’t want to carry them. Within a 5 km radius, delivery can be made as quick as 2 hours.
The data intelligence collected in the store will also help Intersport to gain valuable consumer insights and continuously enhance its product range and services.
New Retail is a revolutionary concept, introduced by Alibaba, which merges the best offerings from both online and offline and supports merchants to accelerate their digitalization process. It envisages retailers of the future using consumer insights generated on different platforms to develop informative and entertaining content for omni-channel delivery.
