“Mobile payments” has 32.5% of respondents from the research of WeChat Activities Conducted Daily by WeChat Users in China (2016). WeChat gives a great opportunity for individuals to start a business. It also provides a more convenient way for shopping.
Starting a WeChat Shop basically, means selling products by posting the product information on Moment. This method is preferred by lots of sellers. They can divide into four categories:
• Individuals who can help buying luxuries and makeups which cannot be purchased in China or those that sell cheaper abroad
• companies (such as Nike)
• traditional stores (such as bookstores, cake stores, restaurants)
• third party online shopping website
After individuals join in the business, their friends can see the product information through Moment and the individual collects the number of each product required by their friends and report it to their managers. The managers will deliver the products to them, then they will send the products to each customer. “WeChat even makes it easier to buy items from foreign shops as Chinese buyers can pay in RMB, and the payment system will automatically settle with retailers in the local currency. The system will support settlement in British pound, Hong Kong dollar, U.S. dollar, Japanese yen, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Euro, New Zealand dollar and Korean won” (Roberto, 2015).
Joining in a WeChat Shop can especially benefit people like university students, fresh graduates, and housewives, who want to line their pockets but cannot find a job very soon. First of all, WeChat shop is a footloose industry. It has no territorial limits, so does not need offices. The only requirement is having a smartphone. Also, there is a large number of potential customers. As we can see below:
- Number of people registered the WeChat account: 1.1 billion
- Number of WeChat monthly active users: 762 million
- Number of WeChat daily active users: 570 million(Walkthechat, 2016).
Any one of them can be their customers. Moreover, starting a WeChat personal store is less time consuming. The traditional market promotion is offline at the beginning and then become online. WeChat keeps the marketing promotion online, which means information can spread quicker through the internet. It also saves the selling time. For example, when we want to buy clothes, normally we go to several shops and try different types and sizes to see which fits best. However, in WeChat stores, buyers select the clothes by pictures and sellers provide detailed data for different body types, customers can select the most appropriate ones and this can save lots of time than shopping outside.
In addition, WeChat Shop also has advantage in monetary cost. On one hand, it largely reduces operating cost. There is no need to rent large offices, pay for water and electricity, buy desks and chairs or buy electronic devices, etc. only a small room is totally enough to package customers’ products. People can even do it at home if they want to. On the other hand, it reduces the wage cost. Traditionally, one seller can only service one customer at one time. Through WeChat, one seller can keep conversations with multiple customers synchronously. Somehow, it reduces the employees required which lead to a less wage and salary costs. As we can see, WeChat Shop benefits all three parties:
companies can save money since the reduced operating and salary costs;
sellers can easily find jobs because there is no location requirement;
buyers have wider and better choices for products while using less time.
Reference
Walkthechat. (2016, Mar). WeChat impact report 2016: all the latest
WeChat data-WalktheChat. WalktheChat. Retrieved from
https://walkthechat.com/wechat-impact-report-2016/
Craig Smith. (2016, Jul 14). 78 Amazing WeChat Statistics. DMR. Retrieved
from http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/wechat-statistics/
Amirsan Roberto. (2015, Nov 23). WeChat payment in 20 countries (Mind
Blowing News). Linkedin. Retrieved from
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wechat-payment-20-countries-mind-
blowing-news-amirsan-roberto
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