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Alibaba redraws retail fault lines, bets on physical stores

Alibaba's strategy echoes Amazon's $13.7 billion deal this year for organic offline grocer Whole Foods Market Inc - but with a twist

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China’s fragmented market means Alibaba is spreading itself wider and thinner, hooking an array of mall operators and stores | photo: reuters

Reuters
In a small village shop near the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, store owner Lu Qiwei uses his smartphone to place orders to refill stocks of instant noodles, rice and drinks.

Lu, 61, says he didn’t own a phone two years ago, but he’s now one of 600,000 people using a supply chain app made by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, aimed at drawing millions of Chinese mom-and-pop stores into its orbit.

The app is one part of a multi-billion dollar drive by Alibaba to extend its dominance of online shopping into physical stores, and build a data fingerprint for every