The online giant Alibaba has revealed how it sees the future of online retail. The plans were released in a letter from Alibaba CEO Danial Zhang, who said that the company is looking to ease the integration of traditional retailers and ecommerce marketplaces. In the statement released to shareholders, the company said that “tremendous challenges” would be faced by pure ecommerce operators, as it plans to transform the country's retail market by looking to upgrade traditional retail businesses. It also described the ways in which Chairman Jack Ma plans to grow the company outside its homeland of China. Whilst these plans were not fully detailed in the letter, it suggested that it hopes within the next 20 years to be serving 2 billion consumers worldwide, whilst providing assistance to 10 million businesses. Zhang said that “the most important opportunity on the horizon is not growing online sales in isolation but rather helping traditional retailers upgrade into a brand new retail model”.Â
