Best Buy’s China arm looks to online

Five Star, the China subsidiary of American consumer electronics chain Best Buy, is banking on the burgeoning online shopping market.

The company launched its own shopping site 5star.cn last month. And it is planning to set up online stores in marketplaces like Tmall and Amazon China.

It also plans to increase its offers by attracting independent consumer electronics retailers in small cities to open shops in its own site.

“We focus on smaller cities or towns and want to form partnerships with electronics store owners in villages,” says Five Star CEO Zhou Meng.

“5star.cn will help them offer a bigger selection to their consumers and increases their sales. We plan to recruit 500 to 1000 affiliate stores by the end of this year.”

On top of that, it is looking to expand product categories to include cosmetics and other popular online categories.

Acquired by Best Buy in 2006, Five Star currently has more than 200 offline stores in China.

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