First Taobao offl ine store in Singapore: Let the consumers decide what to sell

Charlene Zhang, business development lead of Taobao Singapore

Taobao, Alibaba’s popular social commerce platform, has unveiled its new home in Singapore’s Funan Mall. The 6,000-square-foot offl ine outlet operated by Virmall, a local business partner of Taobao, is also the fi rst fullfl edged Taobao store in Singapore. The launch follows the success of a Taobao Home pop-up and an extended showcase at multi-label concept store NomadX last year.

Offering an estimated 400 products, mostly from its Home and Living category, Taobao’s offl ine store has a strategy when it comes to selecting products for display. It lets the consumers do the job.

Taobao opened its direct sea-shipping option following its fi rst mid-year sales campaign in Singapore in June 2017, providing an alternative way for those in Singapore to have their orders shipped from Taobao’s merchants to their homes, especially for heavy and large-sized items such as furniture.

This strategy proved to be a right move. Taobao saw a significant growth in purchases from Singapore consumers, the Home and Living category being its fastest growing product category.

According to Charlene Zhang, business development lead of Taobao Singapore, GMV(Gross Merchandise Value) of the Home and Living category in Singapore saw a 50 per cent year-on-year growth from 2017 to 2018. “We were very impressed with the growth fi gure and we can see that there are great demand and opportunities here,” said Zhang.

Additionally, when Taobao introduced its fi rst Taobao Home pop-up in Singapore at Suntec City as part of its mid-year sale in June last year, the response was overwhelming. “The turnout was so massive that the crowd spilled over to other stores and their tenants were complaining. It was at this event that we realised how much demand there is for our products and we started our plans for NomadX, followed by an actual offl ine store,” said Zhang.

Around 400 Taobao items specially curated for Singapore shoppers are now available in the store and range from furniture to household items, textiles, fashion and more. Roughly 80 percent of the items are from the home and living category, with an estimated 50 per cent being furniture.

Taobao, Alibaba Group’s Chineselanguage consumer to consumer platform, was first launched in 2003 and caters to small merchants and individuals as sellers. There are more than 600 million annual active consumers using Taobao and other Chinese retail marketplaces under Alibaba Group, according to offi cial fi gures,

Since 2018, Alibaba Group has also put a big focus on a strategy it calls “New Retail”, which aims to bring together online and offl ine retail with technology to create a seamless consumer experience. For example, it has a chain of grocery stores called Freshippo which digitalises the entire store operations, providing consumers with a 3-in-1 retail experience that encompasses technology-driven fulfi llment of online delivery, seamless in-store purchases and in-store consumption.

“In Singapore, we are also trying to bring together both the online and offl ine experience, so shoppers will fi nd that some items are cash and carry while others can be purchased via scanning QR codes. We have also off ered more delivery options. We want to blend the retail experience, as well as ways to enhance the whole shopping experience so that shoppers aren’t just staying at home and swiping their phones. With the offline store, they can touch and feel some items they have seen online or chance upon new merchants. There is also someone who can answer you on the spot,” said Zhang.

As a Chinese-language platform, Taobao is primarily focused on the mainland Chinese market as well as markets with a large Chinese-speaking population, including Taiwan, Malaysia, Australia and Singapore.

Bringing together the best of both retail spectrums, shoppers can now seamlessly make purchases of products at the Taobao store by Virmall via QR codes with the option to select colours, designs and sizes and make payment all within the Taobao app, while some items can be purchased with cash on the spot. There are more options for delivery — online orders can be arranged to be picked up from the offl ine store, while ready stocks of larger furniture pieces will allow shoppers to receive their items as quickly as two to three days after purchase. One of the showcased merchants, Linsy ( ), has also started offering furniture assemble service for local customers.

Wood furniture showcased at the Taobao store by Virmall

The Taobao Store by Virmall will include a Virtual Reality (VR) service for shoppers to visualise a particular piece of furniture in their own rooms, generated based on actual measurements of a room or even the entire house.

Taobao has also fully embraced technology to determine what products to be sold at this offl ine store.

“All the items showcased at our offl ine shop are selected based on search results, trends, requests made by shoppers both online and offl ine, as well as the top selling brands on the Taobao platform. Every day, we are looking for new products that fi t this market, we get feedback from customers on products that we can buy and display here,” shared Zhang.

Given the availability of direct sea-shipping, the best-selling furniture on Taobao in Singapore are sofas and dining sets, despite such furniture being big-ticket items and shoppers usually being more hesitant towards making big purchases without fi rst seeing or touching the products.

“Besides price and quality, I think it is also because of our huge variety. There are so many diff erent styles to choose from since our platform hosts hundreds of thousands of merchants. The unique thing about Taobao is, if there is any particular style that you like, I am sure you can fi nd something on Taobao,” she pointed out.

“According to our insights, Singaporeans have a preference for the Scandinavian look, hence we have brought in more wood furniture.”

Leading brands from Jiyoujia ( ), Taobao’s home and living channel, and popular merchants such as Linsy are among the curated furniture sets chosen for display, with products on display to be refreshed regularly. ℗