Gome Electrical Appliance Group (Gome Group) will integrate its two B2C e-commerce platform units, Coo8.com and Gome.com.cn, in terms of backstage operation and consumer resources, the Chinese home appliance retailer told the Global Times Monday.
Upon completion of the integration, expected in January, gome.com.cn will remain a B2C website, selling products from diapers to refrigerators, while coo8.com, acquired by Gome in May, will stop selling products directly and instead become a platform for third-party suppliers to sell their goods, the firm said in a press release sent to the Global Times.
Coo8.com's new business model is known as B2B2C (business to business to consumer).
The internal integration aims to expand Gome Group's product categories to meet the wide-ranging demands of domestic consumers, Wang Junzhou, president of Gome Group, said in the press release. While both websites have traditionally sold mainly electrical appliances, they have been aiming for wider variety in recent years.
"In January 2013, we're likely to enable domestic consumers to log in to the two platforms with one account," said Han Depeng, CEO of Gome.com.cn.
"Then, consumers can search for merchandise on coo8.com via gome.com.cn, and they can also add products to a single online shopping cart for payment," Peng Liang, vice president of Coo8.com, told the Global Times in an e-mail Monday.
Feedback
RSS
