Jack Ma is ahead of Jeff Bezos in grocery store ambitions

NEW YORK (Aug 18): Jack Ma is ahead of Jeff Bezos in one area: grocery stores.

For years, it looked to some like Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. was simply following in the footsteps of Bezos’ Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest e-commerce company. Just like Seattle-based Amazon, China’s online shopping giant started a cloud-computing business and created original entertainment content. But when Amazon’s US$13.7 billion bid for Whole Foods Market Inc. sent shockwaves across the retail industry, Ma looked prescient.

Alibaba had been quietly incubating its Hema grocery store concept for two years. It rolled out three new locations last month, bringing the total to 13, the bulk in Shanghai and Beijing. The sprawling, bright supermarkets combine online and offline shopping, where customers who have downloaded Hema’s app scan barcodes on products and pay with their Alipay digital wallet.

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