Chinese e-commerce giant Suning.com will acquire all Wanda Department Stores to expand its offline presence and improve their shopping experience, the company announced Tuesday.

The acquisition is expected to promote an online-to-offline retail ecosystem and facilitate merchandise supply chain reform, boosting profits of its retail businesses, the company said in a statement.

The 37 outlets of Wanda Department Store, with over four million registered customers, are mainly located in downtown areas in first- and second-tier cities.

Suning and Wanda inked a strategic cooperation agreement in 2015 and strengthened their partnership in 2018 with the former buying a tiny stake in the latter's commercial management branch.

Suning.com will build on its cloud computing framework to ensure smoother retail experience and put more focus on product and service quality this year, the statement said.

Once an e-commerce platform focusing mainly on home appliances, Suning.com has been gearing up its offline presence in recent years with over 4,000 grocery outlets opened in 2018.