Freshippo

Freshippo (盒马鲜生) is Alibaba's "new retail" grocery chain that blends online ordering with in-store experience and rapid local delivery, described by Frees Fund's Li Feng as the paradigmatic case of retail's "middle path" — refusing to stay in any single quadrant of offline/online or retail/experience . Launched with integrated supply chains and proprietary logistics, it operates its own seafood counters, private-label lines like "Daily Fresh" (日日鲜), and in-store suspended-chain fulfillment systems that let online orders be picked and packed within minutes . During the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, its dual online-offline infrastructure and stocked supply chain made it one of the earliest and biggest beneficiaries of the surge in fresh-food e-commerce, per Frees Fund analysis at the time . The chain also licenses its model and supply capabilities to traditional retailers: RT-Mart's Shanghai Yangpu store, after adopting Freshippo's seafood zones, private labels, and suspended-chain system, saw same-store fresh sales grow 20% year-on-year in 2019, roughly 10 percentage points above unrenovated Shanghai locations, according to RT-Mart management in an August 2019 briefing .