Sinopec partners with online retailer in e-commerce push

BEIJING - China's top oil refiner Sinopec announced Friday that it will cooperate with e-commerce website yhd.com to expand its online-to-offline (O2O) business.

Sinopec said in a statement that its sales arm signed a framework deal with yhd.com on Thursday and the tie-up is expected to combine the oil refiner's large gas station network, the website's e-commerce capability and joint procurements.

Consumers will be able to make purchases on yhd.com by scanning qr codes in Sinopec's gas stations and they can choose to pick up their deliveries at gas stations.

Yhd.com is China's third largest business-to-customer (B2C) website with more than 70 million registered users. Sinopec has over 30,000 gas stations across China. It is the country's largest and the world's second largest oil product supplier.

In addition to the oil business, Sinopec has shown great interest in the non-oil sector. Earlier this year, Sinopec announced cooperation with RT-Mart supermarket, SF Express and a bottled water company in Tibet.

Sinopec said it will continue to expand non-oil business including e-commerce, convenience stores, advertising and others.

Last year, Sinopec's operating revenue from sales of non-oil products, such as food, beverages, cigarettes and daily necessities, stood at 13.3 billion yuan ($2.2 billion) and it is estimated to top 15 billion yuan in 2014.

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