KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 28): Aeon Co (M) Bhd has announced a partnership with US-based Boxed Wholesale that will see the retailer utilising the e-commerce company’s state-of-the-art technology to accelerate Aeon’s expansion into new retail offerings.

Boxed will be supporting Aeon in its efforts to expand into business-to-business ventures and new retail solutions via Aeon’s virtual mall. The platform is expected to support Aeon’s 4,000 tenants in its malls throughout the country.

In a joint press statement released by the two companies, they announced that Aeon will be utilising Boxed Wholesale’s proprietary storefront platform and inventory-picking software, including click-and-collect services from selected Aeon stores.

Aeon Malaysia’s chief executive officer Shafie Shamsuddin in the statement today said that the tie-up will bring about a wholesome customer experience by bridging its more than 1.3 million customers from offline to the online space.

“We are confident that we can bring in quality tenants and merchants, as proven in our brick and mortar business, into our virtual mall,” said Shafie.  

He added that Boxed Wholesale is one of the few e-commerce companies in the world that built entrepreneurial value in the company by running its own consumer business using its own technology.

The virtual mall is expected to be rolled out in 2Q2021.  

“The ability for an enterprise customer to make just one call to modernize their digital and physical e-commerce capabilities is truly rare. To do it with low capital expenditure is even rarer.

We are beyond excited to bring our technology to retailers around the world and help them succeed in today’s competitive market,” said Boxed Wholesale chief executive officer Chieh Huang.

Boxed Wholesale is an e-commerce platform that was established in 2013, and has an annual turnover of more than US$500 million. It is an online bulk-product retailer that brings the wholesale shopping experience to customers through direct-to-their-door access to warehouse club products.