In China, e-commerce business can set up shops within chatting tool

While Taobao is still prominent in China, a new wave of e-commerce business has emerged on WeChat platform in the past year.

WeChat ("Weixin" in China) is a chatting tool that is by in large similar to Whatsapp, Kakaotalk and Line. But in recent years, in addition to its unique voice messaging feature, many additional functionalities have been added to the tool. Earlier this year, WeChat evolved as a platform by allowing official account owners to set up shop within the chatting tool.

When the store concept was launched, to sell items on WeChat, one has to be verified official accounts, which typically belong to well-known brands. These accounts need to be linked up with the WeChat payment functionality before they can set up their e-commerce store. Selling through WeChat allows the brand to complete each transaction without leaving the application.

Now many smaller grands and third-parties can create their own individual stores on the chatting tool platform. WeChat wants to create a sticky place where users can send messages, play games, shop for things, hail and for for taxi, etc.

There has also been another type of "private account" e-commerce emerging on WeChat, where small businesses set up a regular user account and sell through this channel. Payments can usually be made via AliPay or Bank transfer. Digital marketing for these smaller private shops rely on channels such as word of mouth and Weibo (similar to Twitter).

Source: thenextweb.com