allowing them to reach a vast audience.
Ming Yue’s first exposure to mobile com-
merce on WeChat was two years ago. Before
that, she was a clerk at a factory in Wenzhou,
Zhejiang Province. In September 2014, she
began to sell clothes through WeChat and
she resigned one year later to experiment
with WeChat business, investing 58,000
yuan (US$8,500) into becoming an agent
of the food company. She told ChinaReport
that within two weeks, she had recovered
her initial outlay. As her agents and prof-
its grew, she bought a flat worth 700,000
yuan (US$103,000) and a vehicle that cost
200,000 yuan (US$29,500), transforming
herself from a low-level white-collar worker
into a successful entrepreneur almost over-
night.
“I was so lucky to get involved in WeChat
e-commerce. It’s an area where hard work
and small investments can always pay off.
WeChat e-commerce, I think, is the fairest
industry,” she said.Nascent Markets
WeChat e-commerce started in early 2012
when some small merchants began to pro-
mote products and services through Sina
Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter, and
their circles of “friends” on WeChat. Since
2013, WeChat e-commerce has been grow-
ing rapidly after it enabled online payments
on its platform. In early 2014, some big
brands and retailers began to open shops in
WeChat and several months later, virtually
everyone was able to set up a shop within the
app.
Statistics from the Internet Society of Chi-
na show that WeChat commerce reached a
spectacular 95 billion yuan (US$14 billion)
in 2014, employing more than 1,000 small
traders. In 2015, the market size doubled.
Since its inception, there has been no clear
official plan for WeChat e-commerce and
it was not until a development report on
WeChat business was delivered during an
Internet conference in 2016 that “business”
was fully defined – WeChat e-commerce was
officially termed as any person or enterprise
that is involved in the sale of products and
services through its mobile social platform.
According to the Industry Report on We-
Chat E-commerce released by Beijing-based
iResearch Consulting Group in 2017, thesales figures on WeChat hit 328.8 billion
yuan (US$48 billion) in 2016, and are ex-
pected to hit 707 billion yuan (US$104 bil-
lion) in 2018.
Cheng Xusen, director of the E-commerce
Department at the University of Internation-
al Business and Economics, said the explosive
growth of WeChat business mainly stemmed
from its vast number of users and their grow-
ing attachment to social networking. As Chi-
na’s biggest and most popular online mes-
saging tool, roughly 1.4 billion people have
downloaded the app, including 889 million
active users.
“The market potential of WeChat busi-
ness is spectacular,” he said, adding that it
took only two years for WeChat to reach 10
million store owners and Alibaba’s Taobao,
China’s main traditional e-commerce player,
took 10 years to accumulate the same user
base. In addition, Cheng argued that the in-
stant profits and low cost of WeChat business
contributed to its wild growth and the viral
spread through people’s friends circles made
it possible for traders to make a rapid profit.
The cost of opening and maintaining
a shop on Taobao is at least 2,260 yuan
(US$330) per year at present including a
deposit fee, webpage design and advertise-
ments. Unlike Taobao, WeChat does not
charge any fees or commissions to vendors
running stores through the application.
Cheng told our reporter that the low costs
and lack of entry barriers in WeChat trade
have made it increasingly popular among
full-time housewives, people with disabilities
and university students, making it a prime
choice for start-ups.Obstacles
But there are plenty of people who are
sceptical about WeChat trade. To begin with,
the platform wasn’t intended for buying and
selling – unlike Taobao, there are no con-
trols or ratings to let buyers judge vendors,
or overseers making sure the shops operate
honestly.
Lin Cai, head of the WeChat E-commerce