Alibaba's new smart factory makes clothes for smaller merchants
11 November, 2020
Robots whirr around, shifting fabrics and clothing, on the evening before Singles' Trip to the Hangzhou site for Xunxi, Alibaba's first wholly-owned smart factory.
The site is among three plants Alibaba has launched under its manufacturing division, which marks the company's latest foray in to the offline world since it seeks to diversify from e-commerce.
Speaking at a media briefing during Alibaba's annual shopping festival, leader Alain Wu said Alibaba established Xunxi to greatly help China's small merchants respond to consumer demand more quickly.
The division will expand, not by opening more factories but by getting more companies to use its services and by learning which parts of its technology can be scaled up, Mr Wu said.
Together with Taobao, among Alibaba's main e-commerce sites, Xunxi will serve the "long tail" of the apparel industry - which comprises of brands that blossom online but lack usage of advanced manufacturing services, Wu said.
"Many of these small-and-medium-sized brands, their advantage is they can adapt to changes on the market and meet consumer demand, but their disadvantage is in manufacturing because their technology and skills are limited," he said.
Within its diversification, Alibaba also runs a supermarket chain called Freshippo, launched in January 2016, which includes grown to operate more than 100 store fronts.
Furthermore, it runs a programme to greatly help small convenience stores with product-sourcing and data analytics services and has opened a mall and a hotel in Hangzhou, both which serve as pilot projects to check its new retail technology.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com
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