Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) is making its presence known in the form of a brick-and-mortar shopping mall.
So far, the e-commerce giant has been a huge name in retail, but it has yet to build a physical store where consumers can check out its products and buy them right then and there. Alibaba’s business has consisted on the very successful model of browsing an online shop and filling your digital cart with items, which are then shipped to you.
However, some consumers prefer having a physical location to shop at as well in case they need a product on the same day. Alibaba announced this week that it will build a brick-and-mortar shopping center that will be five stories high.
The place will be called ‘More Mall’ and it will be located in in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. A 40,000-square-meter plot of land has been chosen as the construction location of Alibaba’s mall.
Plenty of popular Alibaba brands will be feature in More Mall, including its e-commerce platform Taobao and a number of conventional brands. Its Hema supermarket store will also be in the shopping mall, which allows shoppers to order groceries through their cell phones and pay using Alibaba’s Alipay payment platform to complete purchases that they can then pick up.
BABA stock fell 0.3% Tuesday.
