Alibaba reveals big data tactics

Alibaba, the world's largest e-commerce retailer, has revealed how it uses its massive stores of consumer data to fuel China's offline retail sector in a two-part Warc Exclusive series. As China's retail sector shows few signs of slowing, the company – which on Friday announced Q4 sales up 39% year on year – sees itself as an important link between online and offline retail in the country. Danfeng Li, the company's Director of Big Data and Technology, explained at MRMW 2016 in Kuala Lumpur how the e-commerce giant captures first-party data from customer smartphones in the stores of participating offline retailers and links this with third-party data from Alibaba's own properties to build a holistic picture of the path to purchase.