Companies to provide new means of shopping

On Tuesday in Shanghai, Alipay, a leading third-party payment platform in China, joined Juhuasuan, a business unit under Alibaba Group, and the advertising company Focus Media Holding, to introduce a new way of shopping.

"In the past, there were several links between advertisements and consumption," said Jiang Nanchun, CEO of Focus Media.

"But this plan enables consumers to pay once they have seen advertisements they have been attracted by."

Focus Media is a company that set up a network of liquid crystal display screens that show advertisements in places through which many people pass, such as elevator banks in commercial buildings. The purpose of the displays is to catch the eyes of business professionals who have higher-than-average incomes.

Shoppers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and four other Chinese cities will now be able to take phone pictures of bar codes that are displayed on such ads and use the pictures to buy goods on Juhuasuan.com through Alipay.

This plan is a way of connecting offline technology with online, and the use of mobile phones will make it more convenient to do online shopping outdoors, said Fan Zhiming, vice-president of Alipay.