Ecommerce
Alibaba Invests $300 M in Fresh Produce Market

Through its B2C subsidiary Tmall, Alibaba has invested $300 million in China-based ecommerce for fresh food Yiguo.com.
Yiguo delivers perishable goods to more than 200 cities in China, offering most of its customers same day or second-day home delivery. It also cooperates with Tmall Supermarket by carrying out daily operations of its fresh produce offerings.
The investment will be used to further develop Yiguo subsidiary ExFresh, China’s largest cold-chain logistics platform, to expand its delivery reach while allowing its Tmall Supermarket division to work more closely with Yiguo.
The expansion expected to enable them process 500,000 daily orders by the end of this year, and up to 5 million orders by 2020.
Read the full story here.
2. Courts targets 15% of revenue from online over the next decade
Courts Asia is setting aside $10 million to revamp seven out of its 15 outlets in Singapore after a stable financial results.
The company also has in the pipeline to enhanced in-store experiences and online offerings. Courts Singapore is planning to launch a new website by the end of the year.
The retailer is in a good position to move into omnichannel sales and has set a goal for online revenue to reach 15% over the next decade, up from between two and three percent now.
Read the full story here.
3. Indonesia: Ecommerce tax must be deducted in payment gateway
Amid the discussion for the ecommerce income tax bill, Center for Indonesia Taxation Analysis (CITA) executive director Yustinus Prastowo said the government could not collect taxes for ecommerce activities based on the transactions that had been made because not all transactions ended with payment.
“We should apply the Korean system, where the authority collects the taxes in the payment gateway because ecommerce transactions are paid through online systems,” Yustinus said at a seminar on taxation in Jakarta on Thursday.
Currently, Under Director General of Taxation Regulation No. SE-62/PJ/2013, the government collects income tax and value added tax (VAT) from four kinds of ecommerce: online marketplace, classified ads, daily deals and online retail
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