Suning.com, one of China’s largest online retailers, buys 37 department stores to merge online and offline retail

Shenzhen-listed Suning.com, one of the largest B2C online retailers in China, announced on Tuesday that it would buy 37  department stores from commercial property group Wanda located in China’s first and second-tier cities.

Chairman Zhang Jindong said during the event that this is a key move in 2019 for the company to lay out its online-and-offline presence.

Suning.com is an affiliate with offline retail giant Suning Group. Taobao holds about 20 percent of Suning.com.

Suning.com did not disclose the deal value, adding that the deal did not meet the information disclosing criteria.

At its peak, Wanda Group, a multinational conglomerate with interests in property and entertainment, owned up to 100 department stores but shut down more than 40 in the second half of 2015 alone, due to non-satisfying performance.

Wanda’s department stores generated RMB 23 billion (US$3.39 billion) in revenue in 2015. From then on, Wanda Group stopped reporting this revenue in its financial statements.