New Retail Briefing #5: Alipay Pushes Cross-Border Payment; JD.com Continues Unstaffed Delivery Initiatives Abroad

Executive Summary

“New Retail” is a model for integrating online retail, offline retail and logistics across a single value chain powered by data and technology. In this biweekly series, we cover important developments in New Retail in China and beyond. Here’s what’s happening:

• Alibaba continues to facilitate cross-border payment: AlipayHK users (those with Hong Kong-based accounts) can now use AlipayHK to pay outside of Hong Kong, and some supermarkets in Canada now accept Alipay.
• Alibaba formed a partnership with Office Depot to target small and medium businesses in the US, and to support cross-border logistics and fulfillment services.
• JD.com is working with Rakuten to develop unstaffed delivery solutions for the Japanese market.