Old Version
Jack Ma, founder of China’s largest online-shopping platform, Alibaba, recently opened the group’s first unmanned supermarket, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, where Alibaba has its headquarters.
Launched as a part of Alibaba’s Maker Festival which introduced innovative technologies and store formats, the unmanned convenience store, Tao Coffee works on Alipay, the group’s mobile payment system. Customers “check in” to the supermarket by scanning a QR code with their mobile phone and “check out” by passing through the “settlement door” which automatically identifies what a customer has bought and then gives a total price.
Alibaba is not the first to open an unmanned supermarket. Just before Tao Coffee opened, a staff-free supermarket in Shanghai was closed for being too hot in summer. But Alibaba claimed that they will develop suites of new technologies to support and promote unmanned supermarkets. Ma hopes that it will spur a new round of innovation in the retail industry.
During the five-day Maker Festival, Tao Coffee reportedly saw nearly 6,000 customers who made around 7,000 purchases. Many investors have been optimistic about its future, while the public has expressed concern that if the unmanned supermarkets spread, people will lose their jobs.
