The term “new retail” was coined by Alibaba chairman Jack Ma in 2016 to express how he, CEO Daniel Zhang and his team built the Alibaba Group ecosystem by integrating online and offline channels. This approach expanded ways of living, communicating, sharing, building, teaching, consuming and doing business. Ma considered new retail a centrepiece of the “five new” – new retail, new manufacturing, new finance, new technology and new energy. Back in 2016, Ma felt that the era of pure e-co