Alibaba is not satisfied with just selling goods online and want to venture into physical sales in the grandest way possible. The e-commerce giant wants to sell cars using a vending machine-like system to customers.
It might sound like something out of a sci-fi movie but the company took the extra step by releasing a video showing off how the vending machine will work. The concept is similar to verticle carparks where you will just need to drive your car into a bay and the platform will elevate your car into an empty slot while giving you a reference for when you would want to retrieve your car. They are also allowing a test drive before you purchase the car and all of this can be done from the Alibaba Taobao app. Users will just need to snap a picture of the car they want to test, input their personal information, take a selfie and submit a deposit. All they need to do after that, is head over to the Tmall-brand car vending machine which will use facial recognition or login code to retrieve their choice of car and offer them a three-day test drive.
Alibaba intends to open two of this vending machines in January with more planned to launch across China by next year.