The WeChat Phenomenon – Everyone is a seller
The WeChat Phenomenon – Everyone is a seller
How did a social network become the mighty super app and is one of the biggest E-commerce platforms in the world?
When I first arrived in China in 2010, The most popular software was QQ, it was a slightly better version of the popular AOL or ICQ.
When I tried to use E-mail to contact people, I was explained that “in China, Email is not that popular” and that “we only use QQ mail and receive it on QQ so why not just use QQ.”
I was convinced by the explanation, downloaded QQ and started to connect with my Chinese friends and colleagues.
Other than QQ, another social network called Weibo was top-rated as well. Today, Weibo which is very similar to Twitter from the west, is still very popular in China.
Just when I started getting used to QQ, many people downloaded the new app from Tencent (the corporate which created and owns QQ), which called WeChat.
Everything you need in one app
WeChat became popular for mobile users very quickly. Tencent understood where the market is going, and decided that updating QQ just won’t cut it. They created an entirely new app, which started just for chatting purposes, but also had a wall feature called 'moments.' This feature, allowed you to share what is on your mind, just like Facebook.
After becoming very popular and having the option for video calls, voice calls, groups, sending posts and share them on your moments, opening an official account for your business, WeChat decided to step it up and add a wallet feature which will allow you to send “red pocket” or in Chinese “hong bao” to your friend.
The red pocked is a long tradition in China, where family members give each other red envelopes with money in holiday time.
So, after creating this digital red pocket, people started transferring money thru WeChat.
It is important to notice that WeChat was not the first digital wallet in China. Alipay was the first one, created by Alibaba to enable safe purchase on TaoBao (Chinese leading shopping web).
The concept of online pay via phone became vastly popular in China and the two giants, Alipay and WeChat are the biggest on the market at this point.
WeChat started to add many other useful features like taxi service, air tickets, hotels, bills and so much more. The most important, that you can purchase it all thru WeChat, in one app.
Along with these changes came the people’s initiatives and the will to make extra money.
Virtual revolution in China
People started to find excellent products abroad and post pictures online, and their friends asked them to buy the product for them and bring back to China (paying in advance by WeChat of course).
Many online celebrities were born during these changes too, simple people who just took pictures of products abroad were starting to make much money.
Eventually, those ignited the revolution in Chinese E-commerce. It was the second revolution after the revolution of TaoBao (Chinese leading shopping web). Today, WeChat has 800 Million users while the wallet feature has 100 trillion USD transactions per year!
It seems like everybody sells on WeChat. Everything is payable on WeChat, even when you buy fruits on the street, you just scan the vendor’s QR code to pay.
The power of WeChat is enormous. Nowadays, if you want your product to be successful in China, you have to possess good WeChat agents and a WeChat official account, and it is only the fundamental step in the way.
Tamir Nahmias is an International Business Development Manager and Co-Founder of ICBB group.
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