Gome.com.cn, Coo8 to Integrate Back Ends
Sina Tech, 12/03/12
Chinese home appliance and consumer electronics retailer Gome (0493.HK) announced this morning that it will merge its two e-commerce platforms, Gome.com.cn and Coo8.com, for unified back-end management and resource sharing. Gome's online e-commerce mall will officially be retitled "Gome Zaixian" (Unofficial translation: Gome Online) following integration, and will follow a strategy of independent operations, positioning itself as a B2C site with a range of general cross-category product offerings. Coo8.com.cn will be independently operated and will develop into a general e-commerce platform.
Gome Online and Coo8 will integrate behind-the-scenes systems, including information systems sharing, member interactivity and sharing between the two platforms, shared procurements for economies of scale in certain areas, and logistics systems sharing.
"In January 2013 at the earliest," said Gome.com.cn CEO Han Depeng, "we will be able to implement unified logins, allowing our customers to search for Coo8 product offerings from the Gome Online homepage, and to add items from both sites to a single shopping cart for easy payment." In order to boost customer recognition, the two systems will both be titled "Gome Online" following the integration.
Gome president Wang Junzhou expressed the hope that the integration of the two sites would pave the way for Gome's e-commerce business to bring in more than RMB 1 trln in 2015, making Gome China's most profitable e-commerce company.
Keywords: Wang Junzhou e-commerce Internet strategy B2C Gome 0493.HK Coo8.com Han Depeng Gome.com.cn