Mr. Li Linbin’s New E-commerce Empire — One Million “Kouclo Convenience Stores”

BEIJING, Oct. 09, 2017 -- Mr. Li Linbin has in place an army of over one million “Kouclo Convenience Stores” in third tier cities and other lower tiered cities. Mr. Li has created his own pathway to the treasure trove.

Mr. Li is a visionary, even among e-commerce leaders. His career began over 20 years ago, when he was importing dozens of foreign shoe and clothing brands. Mr. Li is introducing a viable strategy to combat the counterfeit issue. Kouclo’s “One Brand One Operator” policy aims to combat counterfeit items right at the source. Over the past few years, OOMALL had been valued at over USD1 billion.

Kouclo launched its convenience store business line in the second half of 2015, and by 2021, Kouclo expects to have in place over one million convenience stores and 70 million users, which will cover important markets, including third-tier cities, counties, and villages across China. China’s two e-commerce leaders have successfully monopolized the e-commerce market in first and second tier cities. According to Mr. Li, it is difficult to compete directly with these two giants, and therefore, Kouclo must resort to more evasive tactics by pivoting and exploiting other markets. This translates into Kouclo’s focus on third-tier cities, fourth-tiered cities and other lowered tiered cities in China’s rural countryside, where Kouclo has quickly occupied a position of dominance.

Value-added Services Provided by Kouclo Convenience Store

How do Mr. Li’s Kouclo convenience stores work?

Since 2015, when Mr. Li launched the “Kouclo Convenience Store” business, the number of Kouclo Convenience Stores has increased rapidly and today, there are over 170,000 stores across the country. Customers can use the app to purchase a wide variety of products. Kouclo Convenience Stores provide five services or functions: (i) access to local goods  (ii) access to OOMALL products, (iii) assistance to agricultural producers, (iv) customer attraction and (v) financial services.

How to get 1 million convenience store:

Kouclo convenience store will cover 1 million convenience stores in China until 2021. In the expansion strategy, Kouclo will take two paths: on the one hand depend on national e-commerce development policies, especially e-commerce poverty alleviation policy, and cooperation with local government, encourage the convenience store to settle in Kouclo, build sample store and market, and then spread to the surrounding. On the other hand is proposed partner system, partners as the local market representatives, use their own resources develop and help convenience store to settle in Kouclo in accordance with the standard of Kouclo,

“Kouclo’s GMV may not beat competitors, but for the development in third-tier and lower cities, Kouclo will be better than them,” Li Linbin said.

According to Li Linbin’s introduction, Kouclo has got some rounds of investment from investors including State Owned Investment Fund. Credit Suisse and other authoritative institutions valued Kouclo’s market value is nearly RMB100 billion. Kouclo has also been planning to be listed on the US Nasdaq.

Contact:
Gao Wei
[email protected]