Alibaba arm, real estate firm to launch smart commercial street

Eleme and Koubei, a leading local services company of Chinese tech titan Alibaba, inked a strategic partnership with real estate developer China SCE Group Holdings Ltd to launch its first digitalized and intelligent commercial street in Beijing.

The company has built such streets in Guangzhou, Tianjin, Shenyang and Hangzhou, and plans to expand into 200 key cities across the nation in the future. It will empower catering merchants to upgrade their digital solutions and help these vendors to improve online offerings, such as online membership management, smart ordering and discount bookings during off-peak hours.

Eleme and Koubei has facilitated the digitalization and upgrading of the local services market, covering site selection, supply chain, reservation, queuing, ordering, instant delivery and online payment.

Last year, Alibaba formed its local services company last year by merging food delivery app Eleme and review site Koubei, intensifying a battle with Tencent Holdings Ltd-backed rival Meituan-Dianping for dominance of the Chinese on-demand delivery market.

The merged company will leverage Alibaba's capabilities in new retail, membership systems, marketing, logistics, finance and other areas that center on urban living.