Hema Fresh

A Hema employee in the fresh department

Alibaba-owned supermarket, Hema, has recently launched a new delivery service.

Shoppers in Beijing and Shanghai can now order products from Hema supermarkets on a mobile app and have their goods delivered within 30 minutes (for a 3km radius) between the hours of 10pm and 7am.

25 locations in each city are offering the service, which has previously only been offered during the day, and now extended to overnight.

“We found that New Retail doesn’t only merge online with offline, but also connects day and night,” Hema CEO Hou Yi said during a press event in Shanghai on Saturday.

“There are definitely consumer demands that are specific to night time.'

According to Alibaba, over 80 million users of Taobao and Tmall visit between midnight and 4am. The most common demographic being women over the age of 30.