Reuters reveals Alibaba, JD.com seek to lock in merchant loyalty with new services

Keeping merchants happy and signing them up for more services has taken on added urgency for Alibaba and rival JD.com, Reuters reported exclusively. Both Chinese giants are seeking to diversify amid slowing e-commerce revenue growth at home. For instance, snack food chain Bestore Co Ltd plans to link facial recognition technology with Alibaba’s account data by the year’s end, which means that customers opting to have their facial data in Bestore’s systems will have shop assistants able to check on what food they like the moment they enter one of its stores.