Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has offered its comprehensive retail solution to WEMART of Wenchao Group, a leading Asian supermarket chain. The solution will bring Alibaba Cloud’s proven cloud and AI technology that has been supporting Alibaba Group ranging from ecommerce, payment and logistics to WEMART, enabling a smooth integration of online and offline business to enhance the supermarket’s competitive advantages.
Established in 2006, WEMART is one of the largest Asian supermarket chains in the Middle East. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the business of bricks and mortar shops has been affected seriously while online business volume increased sharply. The existing IT system of the company couldn’t meet the requirement of surging business demand, let alone the improvement of other aspects.
To power its next phase of growth, WEMART chose to tie up with Alibaba Cloud. The retail solution provided by Alibaba Cloud including Online-to-Offline (O2O) shopping solution, which combines the strengths of online and offline shopping, payment management that integrates different payment gateways, transaction management, membership management, etc. Besides, customer experience is further enhanced by other features that come with the solution. For example, AliMe chatbot, an AI-powered online customer service, will handle 60-70% of consumer queries and after sale service 24/7. Workforce efficiency and consumer responsiveness has been greatly improved.
Sun Jiansheng, Chairman of Wenchao Group said, "Following the outbreak of the global pandemic, it was apparent that we need to find new growth points and upgrade our existing IT infrastructure to operate efficiently and distinguish ourselves from our competitors. Alibaba Cloud’s retail solution has helped to significantly step up our operations while equipping us with insights for business-critical decisions and enabling us to scale up to address the increasing business demand, both online and in-store."
Phillip Liu, General Manager of Middle East and Africa, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said,"COVID-19 has had an adverse impact on many retailers in the Middle East and made it necessary for company owners to re-strategize their approach. Exceptional times call for exceptional solutions and transforming business practices through cloud computing is imperative to ensuring business continuity in this day and age."
"Alibaba Cloud’s O2O solution offers retailers the opportunity to connect their in-store experience with their digital marketing function. WEMART is the first of its kind in the local market to think out-of-the-box and leverage our services to significantly improve its online purchases, warehouse deliveries, third party payments and other operations, thereby enhancing the customer experience and expanding its customer base. We are looking forward to working with more local customers closely to embark on their digital transformation journey in the near future," he added.
Over the past few years, the cloud computing industry in the Middle East region has witnessed a surge. New cloud technology offerings, with their cost-efficient processing capabilities, scalability and always-on availability, are driving the adoption of cloud services across multiple industries. The retail industry in particular, stands to benefit from cloud-based solutions, given their flexibility and convenience with regard to planning, strategizing and executing future business goals.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also accelerated the digital transformation in the region. According to the International Data Corporation, public cloud spending in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region will rise to US$2.8 billion this year and top US$6.5 billion in 2024.
