Caixin News Agency, February 22 (Reporter Guo Zishuo) Recently, Taobao's internal testing supported WeChat payment, which has sparked heated discussions among people in the power generation and payment circles. Prior to this, Taobao had also conducted multiple internal tests on WeChat Pay. Last year, during the internal test of "WeChat QR Code Payment" on Taobao, consumers had to save the QR code on the Taobao checkout page and then open the WeChat App to scan the code to complete the payment. The lengthy payment process was criticized by the market, and the poor user experience was considered ineffective innovation.
What has changed from WeChat QR code payment to direct WeChat payment and seamless transfer to settlement? Is it only technology that breaks through? Many industry insiders also have their own opinions on Taobao's support for WeChat payment this time. Multiple interviewees believe that optimizing payment methods is not only a matter of rate and price, nor is it a technical issue, but also a result of multi-party games.
A person from a South China payment company told Caixin News that technically speaking, there is no essential difference between scanning QR code payment and redirecting to WeChat payment. Both are connected to WeChat payment. The delay in connecting Taobao and WeChat Pay lies in the degree of openness of Taobao and WeChat Pay, rather than technology.
"WeChat Pay has a certain say in providing Taobao users with a better payment experience." A person from the aforementioned South China Payment Company told Caixin News that although the opening of WeChat Pay can increase revenue, it will also increase Taobao's competitiveness. Correspondingly, JD, which is closely bound to Tencent, may be affected.
Regarding this, a person close to WeChat Pay told Caixin News Agency reporters, "The interfaces of WeChat Pay are all open, depending on the design of their (Taobao) platform." Regarding the reasons for the adjustment of WeChat Pay methods, Caixin News Agency reporters contacted Taobao's relevant person in charge, but as of publication, no response has been received.
Although the overall situation of the incident is unknown, this internal test is of great significance to Taobao. At present, in addition to the traditional e-commerce platforms Taobao, Pinduoduo and Jingdong, the live broadcast e-commerce represented by Tiktok e-commerce is also rapidly seizing the market, and the competition between e-commerce platforms is becoming increasingly fierce.
"Taobao is probably facing great competitive pressure, so it decided to let go and directly connect to WeChat Pay. WeChat Pay directly redirects to optimize user experience, which helps improve conversion rates. On a large scale basis, only a one percentage point increase can also contribute to significant profits." The person from the South China Payment Company further added.
WeChat Pay has always been a giant in the third-party payment industry, and its user base cannot be underestimated. The strong social attributes of WeChat have added a certain degree of stickiness to WeChat payments. According to the survey data of the Payment Clearing Association, in the offline scenario, the payment products that mobile payment users will use more often in 2022 are WeChat payment, Alipay and cloud flash payment, accounting for 87.9%, 85.3% and 80.3% respectively.
This internal test has broken the circle, and analysts believe that there are clear positive signals. "The progress this time is that it can be directly redirected, which not only optimizes the user experience for ordinary users, but also truly breaks the" firewall "that major platforms have set up. Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry at Broadcom Consulting, told Caixin News that WeChat Pay has never had an independent app, and to use WeChat Pay, WeChat must be opened, and the user activity of WeChat is unmatched by platform type payment apps.".
At present, Taobao's support for WeChat payment and WeChat QR code payment is only a small-scale test, and there is no clear online schedule. In Wang Pengbo's view, further observation is needed to determine whether Taobao's support for WeChat Pay will squeeze the online transaction share of other payment institutions after it is fully liberalized.