New Era of Digital Media: The Emergence of E-Commerce on Wechat Mini Program
June 14th, 2018
How e-commerce and WeChat mini app can relate to each other?
With the widespread use of WeChat Mini programs among users and application developers, the user size of it also exceeds more than 400 million, and there is still a huge room for its growth. Besides, as a breakout point, WeChat Mini Program leads e-commerce service to enter in a new dramatically growing market with social media as its core, and unsurprisingly WeChat will also become the largest trading venue in the future. At present, the influence of the WeChat Mini Program in both the user market and consumer market motivates and inspires more and more enterprises to promote their brands and products. Also, there is an obvious trend that a range number of well-known brands are launching their mini-programs. We can see that the WeChat ecosystem around mini-program form and function is gradually emerging.
E-commerce market on WeChat
It cannot deny that WeChat has introduced an option through which people can sell their products on a wide range. The larger market of online shopping and e-commerce model on WeChat attract huge numbers of consumers as well as merchants by constantly adding new options and forms on WeChat for facilitating online consumption patterns. Also, many foreign companies have entered the e-commerce market of China to intergrade with this burgeoning and popular e-commerce model. No matter for foreign brands or domestic brands, undoubtedly, WeChat to a large extent has been considered as the best app to approach or enter the e-commerce market in China.
The emergence of e-commerce on WeChat Mini Program
In addition to WeChat itself, WeChat Mini Program also allows international and national brands to develop their e-commerce model. Vipshop, a Chinese company that operates the e-commerce website VIP.com specializing in online discount sales, launches its WeChat Wallet portal and fully open the platform to all WeChat users on April 8, 2018. In the field of social e-commerce, users from Tencent is a vitally potential group in online shopping. At least one-billionth-scale user resources are open to the Vipshop e-commerce platform vice versa.
In fact, on the one hand, WeChat as a social medium has a higher rate in user activation than other social media and platforms, and its users have a stronger ability to accept new concepts and innovations. On the other hand, most users already use WeChat for a long time, and massive users’ demands need to be met by high-quality downstream service providers. Also, one of the most significant features of WeChat is targeting young people in their new concepts, forms, formats, and functions. As a result, inevitably WeChat Mini Program is a vital platform to promote their brand through joining in the e-commerce project.
Vipshop’s launch on WeChat Mini Program, the Rise of E-commerce New Era on WeChat Vipshop attempts to use the WeChat portal to apply social e-commerce and rejuvenation strategies. Judging from the actual diversion effect, during the promotion period of the only product promotion club, the number of active users of the Weipin WeChat entrance accounted for 25.8% of the total, and after 90, the proportion of the crowd accounted for nearly half. According to the data from Vipshop, the top five active users are from Shenzhen, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Chengdu.
As a self-operated e-commerce platform, Vipshop not only operates its platform services but also actively explores new cooperation models with third-party brand companies on its WeChat Mini Program. Based on Vipshop’s operations, it also provides more e-commerce platforms and chances for its business partners, including a range of luxury brands, and cooperates with its partners to instigate social marketing.
Through obtaining support from Vipshop, L’OREAL PARIS Launches its WeChat Mini program
On May 8th, based on WeChat’s huge social ecology, supplemented by Vipshop’s well-designed e-commerce service support, the internationally renowned brand L’Oreal Paris will also become one of the members, who is officially launching the brand’s mini-program on WeChat. Subsequently, the home page Vipshop’s mini program will also introduce and set the L’Oreal Paris entrance. On May 9th, L’Oreal Paris officially launched on WeChat Mini Program, and Vipshop promises to constantly provide e-commerce service support for it. Besides setting L’Oreal Paris entrance in its mini program's homepage, Vipshop also connects its official WeChat account with L’Oreal Paris’ new-launching WeChat mini program to assist the luxury brand to better adapt the e-commerce model on WeChat Mini Program.
Until now, L’Oréal Paris has launched a total of 56 products in its WeChat Mini Program, including men’s skincare products, make-up products, cosmetics, and cosmetic products. From the mini-program, users can directly purchase products, register member and enjoy membership benefits. At the same time, the mini-program also provides a variety of online activities, such as online live broadcast. During the live broadcast, users can also place a purchase order. Such a convenient function is conducive to forming a new social shopping plus shopping integration mode.
Vipshop believes that brands also need to focus on user interests and consumer behavior, strengthen social gameplay activities, increase conversion rates, and precipitate users through the membership system to engage its consumers. In cooperation with L’Oréal Paris’ WeChat Mini Program, Vipshop also provides service supports in the process of payment, storing, shopping, shipment, customer service, etc.
Future Plan and Future Development
It is worth noting that the cooperation between WeChat and Vipshop is due to the “magic speed, the fastest one among all social media” seen from the launch of WeChat Mini Program at the beginning of the year. WeChat officially states that the operation of the brand mini-program is neither a single point of operation nor a single shelf, but it is around the integrated operations of users.
In the future, Vipshop hopes to build WeChat social e-commerce with more third-party brands, provide customized e-commerce operation services for different brands, and empower these brands on WeChat. Moreover, through adapting the WeChat mini program to connect online and offline platforms of these brands, Vipshop desires to attract more online users and transform them to be offline users to quickly and cost-effectively serve to their customers, complete their rapid business expansion, and jointly build e-commerce ecology and win-win cooperation.
Conclusion
Working in the e-commerce market is not that difficult as everyone can work well on WeChat because of the latest technology available at every doorstep, and more and more brands may launch and design their own WeChat mini-programs in future. Therefore, it will promote the re-advancement of brand social e-commerce applications and establish a new application system.
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