(Yicai Global) Jan. 22 -- GOME Retail Holdings will officially unveil an online retail platform, Zhenkuaile, featuring entertainment and social networking, tomorrow, marking the business transformation of one of China’s largest retailers from offline to online mode.

“GOME hopes that the Zhenkuaile app will become a local life service and e-commerce platform that features social networking, business and sharing functions,” Xiang Hailong, chief executive of GOME Online, said at the platform’s online press conference yesterday.

GOME Retail’s main goals this year are to reduce the company’s overall operating costs by 5 percent and boost revenue and profitability by increasing the variety of goods as well as attracting traffic growth on the Zhenkuaile app, Xiang added.

All of the group’s 3,000 stores across China will be digitized, and each offline store will have its own product page and video shopping guide on the Zhenkuaile app. GOME’s about 800,000 WeChat communities in China will also have their own page on this app, he said.

Meanwhile, Li Xiang, general manager of GOME South China and Guangzhou branch, told Yicai Global: “(The Guangzhou branch) has nearly 100 video shopping guides, and the number will be further expanded to several hundred in the future.” The branch will gradually reduce full-time (offline) sales staff in its 72 directly-operated stores, Li added.

Xiang, a former president of internet giant Baidu, became the CEO of the newly-established GOME Online in August last year. He also serves as the executive vice president of GOME Online’s parent company GOME Retail, allowing the traditional retailer to be more involved in the internet business.

GOME Retail was once China’s leading offline home appliance retailer, and its founder Huang Guangyu was once China’s richest man several times at the turn of the century. But GOME’s businesses have gradually lagged behind its former main rival Suning.com in the mobile internet era.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Peter Thomas