At the French E-commerce exhibition “One to One” which was held from the 20th to the 22nd March 2018, Andrea Ghizzoni, Europe Director of WeChat (Tencent) hosted a plenary session entitled “With WeChat get to know everything about reaching Chinese consumers!”. The Lengow teams were on site and as a summary of this plenary session are sharing 4 ways to sell on the WeChat messaging platform.
With more than a billion active users per month, WeChat is a genuine Swiss army pen-knife and offers an “All in One” solution in which the Chinese can communicate, play, search products, buy or even pay for them on their mobile. By creating an official WeChat account, users are able to subscribe to your account in order to follow your news, receive “push” notifications and also be redirected to your e-commerce site.
Expand your visibility on WeChat
In China, WeChat is part of the daily life of Chinese Internet users. A truly personalised space, this social platform has made the choice to publicise only one sponsored content per day in order to avoid exposing users to an aggressive advertising strategy. This means that the advertising must be as relevant as possible.
To put you in contact with its users, WeChat has made two advertising formats available to advertisers:
- The advertising banners (or “Banners ads”), which are displayed at the bottom of the articles written by an official account WeChat. They are composed of a logo, an account name, a title and a “Call to Action”. When the user clicks on the banner, it is then redirected to a page with additional information on a brand or a product. Concerning the button “Call to Action”, it returns the user to a landing page. Invoiced on the basis of CPC, this format is preferred for long-term campaigns and for the purpose of acquiring new subscribers.
The Ads “Moments” (or ‘Events Ads”)that appear in the news-feed “Moment” of users of WeChat. Commonly used by advertisers, this format is invoiced as CPM and enables you to promote your brand. This advertising is composed of the brand name and a profile picture, a description of 40 characters in Chinese, a link to an HTML5 page and some photos (6 maximum) or videos.
WeChat indicates that the rate of interaction with an advertisement can climb to 10%, versus less than 1% on average in the West. As at today, advertising represents 20% of the revenues of the messaging platform. In addition to inform, entertain or even to mobilise its users, WeChat is also the ideal space to reach a new target audience.
4 Ways to Sell on Wechat
With 1 billion WeChat users who perform more than 1 million transactions per minute on the app via WeChat pay, the platform represents a real growth potential for e-merchants. Andrea Ghizzoni, Europe Director of WeChat (Tencent), has even indicated at his recent Conference that6% of users of WeChat spend EUR 500 per month on the platform.
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Develop HTML5 landing pages
With WeChat, it is possible to sell your products through the creation of landing pages in HTML5 within your official account, so as to offer users a personalized experience of the platform. Quick and easy to develop, this format is appropriate for short-term marketing actions or to promote a sub set of products. It can also be used for one-off promotions or even the launch of capsule wardrobes such as those of the Dior luxury brand in 2016.
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Connect your shop JingDong to WeChat
On Wechat, it is also possible to integrate an existing JingDong (京东) shop within your official account. In doing so, the management of your sales and transactions are carried out directly by the intermediary of the JD.com platform. As for the JD web shop, it automatically adapts to mobile navigation needs, without need of further development.
While this online store allows you to get started quickly and take advantage of the Platform JD.com, the user experience is somewhat reduced given it is standardized and therefore less customizable.
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Expand your e-commerce site
The WeChat social platform also gives you the possibility to integrate your e-commerce website via the APIs. If you want to choose this option, you need to make sure that you respect the following elements: the language, the currency, the mode of payment (WeChat Pay) and even adapt your mobile site…
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Build your own store in Wechat
If you do not want to go through an intermediary online store such as JD, you also have the possibility to create your own web shop. Fully developed for WeChat navigation, this alternative offers the best experience for the users of the platform since it corresponds perfectly to the uses of WeChat. In terms of investment in development and integration, the amount will vary depending on the application.
NB: It is also possible for you to create a shop WeChat with Youzan, Weidian, or LeWaiMai.
