What is a WeChat Shop?
WeChat started out as a messaging APP, and quickly extended its functions to include social medias and services. However, the core of WeChat business model is e-commerce: the ability of WeChat to become the electronic wallet of its users.
When users are accessing your website via WeChat, they can use WeChat as a billing system to check-out through a “one-click-payment”: this enables an extremely seamless user-experience and a significant increase in your sales conversion rate.
WeChat shops and customer service
WeChat shops enable to provide your users a simple and mobile access to your products and a convenient way to handle payments. There is another major asset to WeChat shops: customer service.
WeChat is indeed the number one communication channel today in China, and it is becoming more and more natural for users to look for WeChat public accounts for information or to raise requests. By having customers buying via your WeChat shop, connected to your WeChat public account, you give them an integrated and intuitive way to speak to your customer service: simply by speaking or writing to the WeChat public account
Your WeChat shop also enables you to easily send discounts to your customers via a WeChat Official Account. Keep your users updated about the latest promotion and keep them engaged with your brand!
How to open a WeChat shop?
Opening a WeChat shop with WalktheChat is easy. You just have to signup online, and we will provide you with an unique QR code linking to a customized WeChat store for your users.
Users are automatically logged-in to your WeChat shop via WeChat login, and the shop comes with WeChat payment integration. So you can focus on what matters most: providing the best product and services to your customers.
How to connect your WeChat Shop with your bank account?
You can connect your corporate bank account with WeChat to receive cross-border payments directly from Chinese customers. Chinese users can pay in RMB, and you’ll be able to collect payments in USD, HKD, AUD or NZD anywhere in the world.
These payments are handled by the WeChat Cross-border Payment solution, whereas WeChat automatically handles currency conversion and oversea transfer.
How to upload products to your WeChat shop?
WalktheChat WeChat shop solution integrates with popular e-commerce solutions such as Shopify and Magento. Your products, orders and inventory can be automatically uploaded to WeChat, and even synchronized in real-time.
If you do not use a popular e-commerce solution with a WalktheChat integration, custom API integration or manual upload are of course possible.
How to generate traffic to your WeChat shop?
WeChat is not a searched-based ecosystem. As such, you need to help your customers find your shop.
Although WeChat offers an advertising platform (somehow similar to the Facebook advertising tools), most brands (especially brands that are new to China) prefer to leverage Chinese bloggers or influencers for promotion.
What is the difference between a WeChat shop and a WeChat Mini-program?
Since WeChat introduced WeChat Mini-programs in early 2017, there have been questions as to what is the difference between a WeChat store and what is a WeChat Mini-program.
A WeChat Mini-program is an “App within the App”. It is an App built in a specific language to be accessible easily via WeChat. It can provide e-commerce services or other kind of functionalities.
A WeChat shop refers to any e-commerce experience optimized for WeChat. It could be a simple website (HTML5) optimized for WeChat via proper WeChat UX, WeChat Login and WeChat Payment, or it could be a WeChat Mini-program.
We recommend our clients to have both a WeChat Mini-program (for optimal user experience website) and a web-based WeChat Store (which will also work in other platforms such as Weibo or Douban)
What are other features of WalktheChat WeChat shops?
- Cross-border payments: receive payments from WeChat and Alipay directly to your oversea bank account
- Flash sales: offer limited-time sales in order to generate excitement and increase conversion rates
- Group-buying: turn your existing followers into brand advocates in exchange for discounts
- Shopify/Magento synchronization: automatically synchronize product, order and inventory data between WeChat and your Shopify or Magento store
- Speed: our stores benefit from China hosting in order to optimize speed for local customers
- Analytics: track conversions and identify traffic and sales from each specific influencer or CPC/CPM campaigns