Want to know what Amazon.com Inc. will be doing in physical retail tomorrow? Look at what is happening in China today. If you'd taken this advice, you wouldn't have been surprised when the behemoth spent $13.7 billion last year buying Whole Foods. Eighteen months earlier Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. had launched Hema, a technologically advanced blend of online grocery shopping, dining and bricks and mortar.

Out of curiosity, Teresa Chen recently went to an unmanned convenience store, EasyGo, near the China Plaza shopping mall in Guangzhou, China. She used her WeChat app to scan a QR code to get into the store, where she found imported snacks, candy and soft drinks. Every product had a price tag powered by radio-frequency identification, a technology that can automatically track and identify tags attached to objects. After she selected a box of crackers, Chen stood in the payment area and the bill automatically appeared in WeChat. Once Chen paid using her WeChat Wallet (a mobile payment service developed by Tencent), the door opened to let her leave the store. "The whole experience was seamless, as I didn't even need to scan the price tag to pay," said Chen, a product manager for a nutrition supplement company in Guangzhou.

BingoBox, a Chinese chain of artificial intelligence-powered, self-service convenience stores, has raised over 100 million yuan ($14.7 million) in its first round of funding, led by technology investment firm GGV Capital, according to a report by Sixth Tone. Powered by AI and other innovative technologies, the self-service convenience stores aim to reduce costs on staff. The retail stores are slowly expanding in big cities across China, drawing the attention of both customers and investors in the process. BingBox partnered with French retail firm Auchan to launch trial operations in Zhongshan, Guangdong province in August 2016, before opening its first store in Shanghai in June. "We are optimistic about opportunities in the retail industry, and especially about the BingoBox team," said Eric Xu, a managing partner at GGV Capital.