---
title: "Alibaba's New Retail vs. JD.com's Million Convenience Stores: Who Will Win?"
description: "Alibaba has just launched New Retail, and JD.com is also planning a million retail stores. Both are elevating offline channel construction to a strategic level. This article analyzes their respective advantages and challenges from multiple dimensions, including information and data, logistics, payment and finance, and operations."
author: "谭长春"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2017-04-26"
language: "en"
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# Alibaba's New Retail vs. JD.com's Million Convenience Stores: Who Will Win?

> Alibaba has just launched New Retail, and JD.com is also planning a million retail stores. Both are elevating offline channel construction to a strategic level. This article analyzes their respective advantages and challenges from multiple dimensions, including information and data, logistics, payment and finance, and operations.

**Introduction:**
Alibaba has just launched New Retail, and JD.com is also planning a million retail stores. One is New Retail, the other is retail stores—who will win? Or who will achieve results first?
At the outset, we might gain some insight into their inner workings through some analyses, which could be meaningful.
Both have elevated offline channel construction to a strategic level.
Since "Singles' Day," the competition between the two for Chinese retail has never ceased. It was originally only online, but now both are eyeing offline, or rather, the first half of the online game is over, and the second half has moved offline. While we watch the excitement, both have already achieved results we can only look up to. In fact, the internet has disrupted many things, but retail, as a basic daily consumption activity, indeed captures our attention more.
It seems these two initiatives have been highlighted in many reports, and both are strategically important tasks for the two companies. Of course, we hope these changes will benefit us ordinary people.
Actually, as a long-time practitioner in the FMCG retail industry, we know that this is mainly a matter of channel construction. Although both claim that this appears to involve traditional stores, it may be completely unrelated at its core. Alibaba says it combines online, offline, and logistics to enhance consumer experience; JD.com says it is an innovative entity and should not be viewed simply as a JD convenience store.
**The DNA of the Two**
Jack Ma came from a teaching background, and Alibaba is a pure online mall.
Liu Qiangdong started by delivering goods on a tricycle from Zhongguancun. Although JD.com is also an online mall, its massive offline delivery team resembles traditional commerce equipped with mobile internet ordering tools.
Now, both are doing things that cannot be separated from offline operations.
Will the backgrounds of these two tycoons have an impact on their respective offline businesses in the future?
Offline retail is a very tough business. To list a few examples: business visits are like being a city farmer, the busier the holidays, the busier you are; shelf restocking and terminal display are meticulous and boring; various promotional activities require brainstorming and constant innovation... These tasks are difficult to solve online, and they may be spun off or operated separately, but offline retail cannot exist without them.
Therefore, Alibaba cooperates with other offline enterprises to explore and refine its concepts together, leveraging their strengths, using clever tactics. JD.com, although mostly franchising now, is basically handling things with its own system.
In the end, who will have the advantage? It's hard to judge now. But for the terminals, the key is to control them with multiple tools, means, and methods.
You might say, isn't it whoever brings value to terminals and consumers that wins? Hmm, even if they bring value, they might also exploit quite a bit! It depends on comparing the two!
**Information and Data**
Liu Qiangdong's WeChat screenshot clearly states that this is not a traditional franchise, not old wine in new bottles. Jack Ma also says that mainly through software systems, New Retail is connected, and big data can only be realized by accumulating in the software backend. That is to say, both Alibaba and JD.com are definitely based on mobile internet information technology this time!
Looking at their current C-end operations, Ma's 2C is not really retail; it's just a platform for retailers to enter. JD's 2C is its own platform, its own operations, its own logistics. Now both are turning to the B-end. Remember Ma said the future is the DT era? Ma is likely to use existing data to serve New Retail business and partners. As for JD, it seems that on one hand, it uses existing data systems to output to retail stores, and more importantly, it may be the continuous data input from a million retail stores nationwide!
From this perspective, who do you think has the upper hand, and who thinks more long-term?
Perhaps it is Liu Qiangdong's down-to-earth, tricycle-pedaling stubbornness that gives him more control and makes him more unpredictable?
**Logistics and Distribution**
In this regard, with Liu Qiangdong's background of delivering on a tricycle, he shouldn't lose, right?
Of course, with Ma's Cainiao logistics, we cannot treat Alibaba's logistics as a "rookie." But we haven't yet experienced its full capability. Alibaba's newly built logistics should also be good, right?
**Payment and Finance**
In this area, Ma's New Retail clearly has a big advantage, because Alipay has become a financial giant that intimidates major banks! JD can only cooperate or use existing partners.
But if JD can truly grasp the cash flow of a million small stores' purchases and sales, although its million stores are fewer than Taobao's stores, the total funds might be comparable! And whether this will attract various financial partners to flock in, we can only wait and see!
**Operations**
We can only say that for both, this is an unimaginable difficulty.
For Alibaba's New Retail, Alibaba currently cannot clearly define what New Retail is; it can only explore and implement while doing, and partners are in various directions. Even if they succeed in each direction, it seems difficult to replicate nationwide. Different operations naturally have their own difficulties.
As for JD, orders, logistics, information flow, management, capital flow, organization and management, assessment and incentives, credit operations, counterfeit goods handling, returns and exchanges, terminal rewards and policies, promotional activities and supervision—all these require in-depth exploration and deep cooperation with the outside world to work with retail stores; otherwise, they will seem like amateurs.
Moreover, since JD is basically a destroyer-then-builder in this regard, the FMCG industry's original channel was manufacturer—distributor—sub-distributor—terminal. Now JD is inserting itself, causing conflicts with the original channel, relationships with enterprises, and the value it can bring to terminals and consumers remain to be seen.
Alibaba, on the other hand, seems to be blazing a new trail rather than competing with the old system. Can it move more lightly?
From this perspective, retail is really about to be disrupted!
Recently, both have taken action on the B-end, both with the momentum of "I will change the world," both based on consumer awareness and product sales on the C-end, carrying out a devastating retail reconstruction. We have to say, there's a good show to watch.
But while watching the show, we are also worried: is such disruption really necessary? We even have a vague concern: the essence of B-end business hasn't changed much; can such reconstruction really succeed?
**About the Author:**
Tan Changchun, committed to selling any product into a fast-moving consumer product. General Manager of Huaxia Cornerstone Marketing Consulting Company, Group Chief Consultant, Special Expert Consultant of Kotler Consulting Group, Project Director of TNS Market Research Consulting Company. Founder of the Integrated Marketing System. Well-known marketing expert and trainer; invited lecturer for China Marketing Director Qualification Certification Exam, special lecturer for "Frontier Lectures," gold medal lecturer of the training expert group of "Sales and Market," and invited lecturer for marketing director classes at several top domestic universities.
Weibo: http://weibo.com/1159426107
WeChat Official Account: chnstone1
China Sales Force: http://t.cn/RIV73Dd
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