Japanese duty-free giant Laox partners with Alipay for O2O retail

By Olivia Minnock
Japan’s largest duty-free retailer Laox will be expanding its online-to-offline (O2O) retail offering with help from Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba a...

Japan’s largest duty-free retailer Laox will be expanding its online-to-offline (O2O) retail offering with help from Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba and its payments arm Alipay.

As part of the partnership, Chinese travellers to Japan will be able to use Alibaba’s online travel agency Fliggy, and pay for tax-free items using Alipay, which can then be collected at Laox’s 38 brick-and-mortar locations across Japan.

SEE ALSO:

 

Laox dates back 90 years and is currently owned by Suning, a Chinese home goods retailer which acquired the Japanese firm in 2009. It currently has an ecommerce shop on Suning.

Chinese spending, especially abroad, has seen a significant increase in the past few years thanks to a growing middle class and decreased travel restrictions. As such, many retailers and payment providers are working to make it easier for Chinese customers to pay all over the world as they would at home.

Laox hopes to expand its O2O product offering significantly: currently, it has about 100 products on offer, largely skincare and cosmetics, but the business aims for a range of over 5,000.

 

Share

Featured Articles

Workshops to Attend at FinTech LIVE London Global Summit

Discover the span of executive workshops taking place at FinTech LIVE London Global Summit, learn how to attend below

Barclays Expands Partnership with HPE for GreenLake Platform

Barclays CTO Stephen Flaherty and HPE SVP Matt Harris on why the bank has doubled down on HPE GreenLake, signalling a strategic shift in cloud adoption

Gartner: 60% of Finance Teams now use AI

And of those finance teams that are not using AI, half are still planning to use it. By 2026, adoption will be at 90%

Two More Executives Join the Lineup for FinTech LIVE: London

Digital Payments

FinTech LIVE: London Welcomes Three More Business Executives

Banking

Fintech Bosses: Will UK Government Tax Hike Damage Growth?

Financial Services (FinServ)