Retail Pharmacy In The Age Of AI

"In our $100 trillion world economy, it is the second largest economy, but it's also the world's largest developing economy," Gai said. Pointing out that China's population is about 1.4 billion people, Gai said, "You're going to get a plethora of different brands. China also is the world's most competitive market. When you have a lot of competition, you're naturally going to have a lot more models that come out of that market." 

Gai took the audience back in time to 1999, when Alibaba founder Jack Ma toured the United States. "China didn't really have a search engine available, but he got his hands on the latest search engine at the time and when Ma searched for American products like beer and searched for German beer, there were a lot of results, but when he searched for Chinese beer, or anything else Chinese, the screen returned blank," she said.

[Read more: Generation next: Capturing millennial, Gen Z shoppers]

When Ma realized the entirety of China was not online, he went back to China and picked 18 students who had no experience in the Internet, e-commerce or building web tools. They started to build the first product, Alibaba.Com, which is still standing today. 

Fast forward 20 years. Gai described how the Internet economy took off in China with a variety of different apps. "The Chinese Internet is really like a parallel universe to everything we have in America—the Amazons, the Googles, the LinkedIns and Twitters–but it's a little more interconnected because of the amount of AI that's embedded in these products," she said.

When these apps were being built the Chinese tech founders adhered to what Gai called, "first principles thinking," which is breaking down very complex problems and rebuilding them.

When this concept is applied to e-commerce, which is how a lot of different tech apps and tools were built in China, there are three components: your consumer, merchandise or service and the context with which you bring these two variables together. "The changes that happen with these three things create the mountain of different possibilities you can have in the e-commerce space," Gai said. "This is how Alibaba went from one little web page, alibaba.Com, to the entirety of its company.

YOHO ECommerce Unveils "YOHO AI Assistant" To Enhance Shopping Experience, Introduce "Best Deal Guarantee" To Train The Pricing Algorithm

HONG KONG, Mar 1, 2024 - (ACN Newswire) - Yoho Group Holdings Limited ("YOHO" or the "Group"; Stock Code: 2347), a leading e-commerce platform in Hong Kong, is pleased to announce that as a pioneer in Hong Kong's e-commerce landscape, it has been actively exploring the synergistic integration of AI technology with retail experience, with a commitment to revolutionizing the online shopping experience for every online consumer. To celebrate its 11th anniversary, the Group officially unveiled its AI e-commerce blueprint and launched YOHO AI Assistant, a personal AI shopping assistant on the YOHO platform, to comprehensively address customers' various shopping queries. In addition, in gratitude for the longstanding support and trust of its vast consumer base, YOHO is launching a citywide shopping promotion and activities with the theme "Best Deal Guarantee" during the 11th Anniversary Thanksgiving Festival to celebrate with its customers.

Exciting Debut of YOHO AI Assistant

YOHO AI Assistant serves as a personal AI shopping assistant for each customer, embodying the five core objectives of personalization, professionalism, convenience, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. It is equipped to provide eight major shopping assistance functions, including comprehensive product information, personalized product search, insightful product comparisons, comprehensive price comparisons, aggregated product reviews, professional product recommendations, 24-hour customer service, and shopping reminders. These features will be rolled out and made available in phases. The YOHO team is dedicated to further enhancing the Group's AI strategy, integrating data across the entire platform to efficiently apply it to customer service, AI conversational shopping interactions, and other areas, with the aim of significantly improving the customer experience. For more details about YOHO AI Assistant, please visit https://bitly.Ws/3ey2K.

YOHO Celebrates its 11th Anniversary Thanksgiving Festival with the Citywide "Best Deal Guarantee" Shopping Promotion

Since its inception, YOHO has adhered to the philosophy of "offering an extensive range of quality products at affordable prices". In 2019, the Group successfully developed an in-house "automatic pricing system" that utilizes an algorithm to determine the optimal pricing and discounts for products, thereby assisting consumers in making the most competitive shopping decisions. Marking its 11th anniversary, the Group has strategically introduced the "Best Deal Guarantee" offer. From 1 March to 31 March 2024, YOHO members who identify the same product available at a lower public price in another Hong Kong store within 24 hours of their purchase on the YOHO platform are eligible to apply a price difference refund of up to HK$1,000.

Furthermore, YOHO will host a 13-day citywide flash sale event starting from 1 March to 13 March 2024. An extensive selection of flash sale deals will be launched precisely at midnight each day, featuring selected themes from over 60,000 products. The categories include major appliances, mobile phones, computers, beauty and skincare devices, games, kitchen appliances, supplements and vitamins. Additionally, the Thanksgiving Festival will feature a special "Fixed Price $11" promotion, offering a variety of limited-quantity products at a flat rate of HK$11. In addition to the best price guarantee and flash sales, YOHO is partnering with Mastercard, BoC Pay, AlipayHK, and X Pay to offer various payment discounts, with savings of up to HK$500.

Ms. Kathy Tsui, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Yoho Group, said, "Amid the complex and ever-changing external geopolitical and economic landscape, the Hong Kong economy still faces significant challenges that cannot be underestimated. YOHO is acutely aware of consumers' strong demand for products with great cost-effectiveness. Coinciding with the YOHO 11th Anniversary Thanksgiving Festival, we are genuinely launching a vast array of offers and privileges to reciprocate our customers' support. Additionally, as an e-commerce player persistently leveraging technology to enhance the shopping experience, we believe in the transformative potential of AI technology on the future retail ecosystem. Consequently, we are actively engaging with leading global AI firms to research and develop applications and integrations of AI technology. We are thrilled to announce the launch of the YOHO AI Assistant Beta version on 28 February, marking a pivotal milestone in the YOHO AI e-commerce blueprint. Looking forward, YOHO will further amplify our market strategy, embracing innovative thinking and technological advancements to provide an unparalleled intelligent shopping experience, with the ambition of expanding from a local Hong Kong e-commerce platform to the global market."

For more details on YOHO's 11th anniversary promotion, please visit https://bitly.Ws/3exhY

About Yoho Group Holdings Limited (Stock Code: 2347)

Yoho Group Holdings Limited, Hong Kong's first B2C e-commerce company listed on the HKEX main board, operates on the online-merge-offline (OMO) business model. It has more than 1.1 million registered users and more than 2,290,000 monthly active users and offers a diverse product portfolio covering approximately 60,000 SKUs (with a focus on consumer electronics and home appliances). According to Frost & Sullivan 2020/21 data, Yoho ranked first as an e-commerce platform with a primary focus on consumer electronics and home appliances in Hong Kong in terms of website traffic and recorded the highest online retail sales of consumer electronics and home appliances among all Hong Kong e-commerce platforms.

Copyright 2024 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. Www.Acnnewswire.Com

Sustainability, AI And E-commerce Are Top Wholesale Trends For 2024, Study Finds

In a recent report by NuOrder by Lightspeed, the business-to-business marketplace platform, surveyed 65 brands and retail experts looking at wholesale trends for the upcoming year.

Retailers and brands identified e-commerce, sustainability, artificial intelligence and emerging technology, personalization, data and analytics and inventory management as top trends shaping the industry over the next five years.

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The report's authors noted that unsurprisingly, AI and emerging tech will disrupt every aspect of the industry — with the need to adapt greater than ever before. Businesses are expected to home in on digital-first practices to dictate their strategies. Seventy-seven percent of experts polled said that digitization will influence changes in wholesale "a lot" and "a great deal."

The primary challenges brands and retailers foresee they will face include rising costs of business, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, inventory management, artificial intelligence and emerging tech and data and analytics.

Notably, retailers and brands are both looking for more data fluency through distribution and sales. Looking ahead, the brand-retailer relationship is set to change the wholesale ecosystem through data sharing and collaboration, private label growth, sustainability and ethical practices, flexible terms and conditions and seamless technology integration.

Amid these rapid changes and innovations, companies are looking to adapt by investing in training to ensure employee comfortability, phase-in implementation, partnering and collaborating with tech experts, prioritizing cyber security, staying updated on the latest tools and trends, taking a customer-centric approach and more.

More than 90 percent of survey respondents said that the key to strong collaboration and communication efforts with wholesaler partners are critical to the success of their businesses. Most brands and retailers said that they are taking the approach of creating shared goals, joint problem solving, training and workshops, checking in regularly, transparent decision-making and maintaining an open channel of communication.

As brands and retailers understand their product life cycle and customer journey as an essential practice, they have become savvier to make more informed decisions on product and distribution, access to data and sustainable and ethical initiatives. Metrics used to track the success of wholesale are sell-through, gross margin, order frequency, reorder rate, average order value and total sales.

Sustainability has continued to be a top-of-mind priority amongst wholesalers; the report's authors note that experts are doubling down on strategies to adapt more sustainable and ethical values.

Wholesalers are conducting product life cycle analysis, investing in sustainable education and training initiatives to ensure total company alignment, collaborations with NGOs and other organizations, engaging with consumers to promote environmental awareness, seeking Organic, Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance certifications and garnering feedback from stakeholders and consumers about company initiatives to improve their environmental footprint.

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