South Korea's Innisfree launches smart stores

Bestselling South Korean cosmetics brand in China, Innisfree, is partnering with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd to open the first smart store in the beauty industry, as announced by the two parties on Wednesday.

Located in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, where the e-commerce giant is headquartered, the store features such facilities as a "magic mirror" that allows customers to put on virtual makeup by simply looking at the screen. It also offers a smart skin examination machine that can store users' skin condition in their Tmall accounts and tailor make skin solutions, and a "cloud shelf" that can display a vast amount of products and their reviews online.

"When we are talking about smart stores in the context of beauty and cosmetics today, it's not only about having a few touch screens that show what types of products you have," said Gu Mai, president of the consumer goods division at Tmall, an Alibaba company.