New York — Jack Ma is ahead of Jeff Bezos in one area: grocery stores. For years, it looked to some like Ma’s Alibaba Group was simply following in the footsteps of Bezos’s Amazon.com, the world’s largest e-commerce company. Just like Seattle-based Amazon, China’s online shopping giant started a cloud-computing business and created original entertainment content. But when Amazon’s $13.7bn bid for Whole Foods Market sent shockwaves across the retail industry, Ma looked prescient. Alibaba had been quietly incubating its Hema grocery store concept for two years. It rolled out three new locations last month, bringing the total to 13, the bulk in Shanghai and Beijing. The sprawling, bright supermarkets combine online and offline shopping, where customers who have downloaded Hema’s app scan barcodes on products and pay with their Alipay digital wallet. The live seafood section is one of the main attractions for Chinese consumers who prize fresh fish and often insist on choosing it themsel...
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