Alibaba Group is reportedly set to sell its department store chain, Intime Retail, to Chinese apparel company Youngor Fashion, marking a retreat from offline retail. The deal, expected to be announced this week, comes seven years after Alibaba took Intime private in a HK$19.8 billion ($2.5 billion) deal as part of its “new retailing” strategy. However, since last year, Alibaba has been refocusing on its core e-commerce and cloud businesses, putting noncore assets like Intime up for sale. This divestment is part of a broader restructuring effort, which has also seen Alibaba merging its domestic and international e-commerce operations and considering the sale of its stake in supermarket chain Sun Art Retail Group.