One of the hottest battlegrounds in eCommerce these days—and that includes global, multi-pronged, behemoth eCommerce operators—is a firm in the physical world, the brick-and-mortar stores and chains that, for various reasons, are increasingly attractive to the likes of Amazon, Alibaba and others.
That was demonstrated again last week when an exclusive report from Reuters stated that Alibaba wants to buy a stake in the Chinese wholesale operations of Germany-based Metro AG. Neither companies are commenting on the news, and reports noted that talks are ongoing, and a deal is not guaranteed.
If successful, Alibaba would reportedly take a piece of a cash-and-carry operation that has 95 stores in China, along with “real estate operations in major centers such as Beijing and Shanghai.” The report noted that “Metro and Alibaba have already partnered in online retail in China,” and that Metro “has been restructuring in recent years to focus on its core cash-and-carry business, selling Kaufhof department stores [and splitting] from consumer electronics group Ceconomy.”
Store Woes
The 2018 holiday shopping season did not exactly bring the most optimistic news about the ongoing prospects of physical retail, specifically in the US — underscoring the apparent oddness of these recent pushes by Alibaba and Amazon to have more of a physical store presence in various countries. Just consider such things as Macy’s disappointing fourth quarter results; the slow, ongo
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