Suning Holdings Group, one of the largest retailers in China, has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with more than ten real estate giants including Wanda Group and Evergrande Group to develop offline smart retail projects, Yicai.com reported.
Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda Group, the largest commercial property developer in China, said the company will help Suning to set up commercial centers and tap into fresh supermarkets as well as maternal and child stores. “We will also cooperate at the capital level,” Wang added.
Xia Haijun, the deputy chairman and president of Evergrande Group, which is the second largest property developer by sales, said they will bring in Suning to its residential projects in more than 200 cities in the country.
“First, we will help Suning to tailor-make smart retail stores; second, we will build up Suning Plaza or Suning Square together; third, we will cover Evergrande’s more than 100 communities with Suning chain stores or community stores,” said Xia.
As Suning plans to open 5,000 new stores in 2018, Xia even promised that Evergrande will help them to build up 10% of them.
In the following three years, Suning is expected to open 15,000 new stores, adding to a total number of more than 20,000 stores.
Unless Sunning feeds on small retailers like an Amazonian squid, they could end up as a dried squid in the Amazon store.