(Yicai Global) Oct. 17 -- China's electrical appliance retail giant Suning Commerce Group Co. [SHE:002024] (Suning) and Jiangsu-based domestic robot manufacturer ECOVACS Electrical Co. (ECOVACS) have jointly developed a smart retail robot which is expected to be present in all Suning physical stores.

Suning held a press conference for the Nov. 11 Single's Day shopping festival yesterday, at which the smart retail robot produced by ECOVACS appeared, talked with Suning's President Hou Enlong and answered his questions, National Business Daily reported.

This first echelon of such robots will appear at Suning's offline stores from Nov. 1 and will be instrumental in assisting shoppers, Hou explained. The robots can recognize the identities, languages and expressions of consumers, as well as actively inquiring after their needs, while recording information from interactions and consumption data, he added.

Suning will also provide consumers with personalized shopping services based on this information and offer data support to brand manufacturers to efficiently market products.

Suning will also team with ECOVACS in fields such as unstaffed stores and factory supply chains to build a new ecosystem of smart retail with cooperation between humans and machines.