Worldline [Euronext: WLN], which claims to be an international leader in payment services, is assisting its digital commerce customers with entering the fast-evolving Chinese markets.
Over 1.38 million Chinese consumers currently order various items from other nations.
As noted in the update, the key to this consumer group is the widely-used lifestyle tool, Weixin (the mainland China version of WeChat). Via a mini program that integrates merchants into the social platform, seamless access and user-friendliness is “guaranteed.”
Worldline aims to facilitate this integration and ensures that Weixin payments are accepted.
China is a major player in online retail, not only as the home of large providers and digital commerce platforms but thanks to its large size, the nation is a target market for international players focused on e-commerce online retail.
Recent studies reveal that Chinese shoppers order items from across the globe. The younger generations are the primary driving force behind this emerging trend.
- Online shopping for goods from outside China grew 33.4% in 2021 and is expected to grow by 27.9% in 2022 and a further 24% in 2023.
- More than 1.38 million Chinese shoppers buy products from other countries online.
- Over 50% of online shoppers ordering from foreign countries were born in 1990-2000.
Established global brands are shopper’s preferred choice.
For instance, L’Oréal generates about 60% of its total revenues from the APAC region in China.
Recently, retail sectors have become quite diverse. The primary focus was on beauty products and baby items, however, clothing, household items, electronics, sports goods and food items are now being ordered and delivered to Chinese consumers.
To reach out to Chinese shoppers on a larger scale, in addition to language barriers, careful attention needs to be paid to the typical habits of Chinese clients.
This reportedly includes the use of social super-app Weixin, an ecosystem that’s reportedly used by over 1 billion Chinese consumers for just about everything, from chatting, journaling to researching their leisure activities, and also for shopping and payments.
Under the name WeChat, Weixin is quite popular with Chinese consumers living overseas.
In Q4 of last year, Worldline had extended its Weixin Pay payment solution, used in Europe since 2019, from a POS service to digital commerce, app and the mini program.
This is a useful in-app feature integrated into the Weixin platform and giving Weixin users easy access to a growing market of participating digital commerce merchants, without being required to switch media, visit another website or download another app.
Guillaume Pascal, Head Global Sales & Verticals at Worldline, said:
“Worldline allows European e-commerce customers to integrate their mini program into the Weixin platform. The aim is to increase customer loyalty and harness the Chinese users’ purchasing power. We are already introducing our multi-channel mobile payment solution to retailers all over Europe.”
Queena Liu, EMEA Regional Director at Weixin Pay, remarked:
“In the midst of the disruptions caused by the pandemic for businesses all over the world, the Weixin mini program has developed into a popular and effective way for brands to offer services and allow for new forms of interaction with the consumer. With the support of our partner Worldline, we are able to provide our users with more and more international e-commerce services.”