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

By Olivia Minnock
Share
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

Worldpay Unveils Fraud Tool at Money20/20 with Capital One

Worldpay and Capital One Partnership set to dramatically reduce false declines through automated fraud detection programme

Standard Chartered Discusses Payments Vision at Money20/20

Standard Chartered’s Cash Sales Head of TMT & Fintech reveals how mobile-first strategies & cross-border innovations are reshaping financial services

GFT & Engine by Starling: Partnering for Banking Evolution

GFT and Engine by Starling unite to deliver cloud-native infrastructure, targeting established banks and new market entrants

Google Cloud Sets AI Agenda at Money20/20 with Vertex

Tech & AI

M20/20: Mastercard Maps Out Future of Payments Tech

Financial Services (FinServ)

LSEG Takes on Digital Identity at Money20/20

Fraud & ID Verification