Online retailer Taobao endorses physical store

Bringing the online shopping experience offline is Lumahgo Sdn Bhd in collaboration with Tmall World – a spinoff of Taobao – and lifestyle furniture retailer, Lorenzo.
The 5,000-sq-ft Lumahgo x Taobao Selection store is on the first floor of Viva Home Shopping Mall in Kuala Lumpur.
“We are developing a new retail system that caters to Malaysians, which will bring a new retail technology experience to local retailers,” said Lumahgo’s chief executive Fabian Kong.
Taobao x Lumahgo was opened by Lumahgo New Retail Sdn Bhd and endorsed by Tmall. 
However, the store was not opened by Tmall or Alibaba Group itself.
Through the agreement, Kong said Alibaba Group would provide the company with tools such as big data that targets Malaysian consumers, technology and a platform for local furniture retailers to sell their products.
“We are helping Tmall World to sell the selected products in Malaysia for customers who do not know how to shop online,” said Kong, adding that offline furniture shopping still accounts for 98% of the transactions.
With the new virtual technology introduced, Kong said it allowed customers to visualise and buy the furniture online.
With this partnership, Tmall will promote Malaysian furniture to the world under a multi brand flagship store run by Lumahgo.
The strategic partnership was formed and witnessed by Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok.
“Our economy has not been very good in the past couple of years, but we have seen an increase in the furniture export industry,” said Kok.