WeChat Store Development: Open Your Shop Inside WeChat

QPSoftware sets up and develops WeChat stores for brands that want to sell to Chinese consumers inside WeChat. From Shanghai, our team builds custom Mini Program and H5 stores with WeChat Pay, connected to your Official Account and to your systems. For Ma France, we developed a cross-border Mini Program store whose WeChat Pay payments are transferred to its bank account in France.

A WeChat store is an online shop that customers open, browse and pay for without leaving WeChat. The formats have evolved: today, a WeChat store can be a Mini Program, a shop on WeChat Shop, or an H5 store opened from an Official Account.

What is a WeChat store today?

A Mini Program store

A store built as a WeChat Mini Program, the format we developed for Ma France. You choose the design and the features: home page, product categories, product pages, cart, delivery information, coupons, and a back office for products, stock, orders and customers. Customers pay with WeChat Pay without leaving the Mini Program. Our WeChat Mini Program development team builds this format.

WeChat Shop

WeChat Shop is Tencent’s own shop service, upgraded from Channels shops. According to the WeChat Shop documentation, shops and products circulate across Official Accounts, Channels livestreams and short videos, Mini Programs, WeChat Search and chats, and developers get APIs for products, orders, logistics and settlement. Its onboarding guide asks merchants for a Chinese business license, as a company or as an individual business.

An H5 store linked to your Official Account

The original WeChat store, also called a WeChat web app: a mobile website linked to the menu of your WeChat Official Account, where customers pay with WeChat Pay in one step. The same store also opens in mobile browsers outside WeChat. Beyond stores, our team also builds H5 pages and WeChat web apps.

If you plan to sell through livestreams, our comparison of Mini Program live and Channels live helps you choose.

How to open a WeChat store: platform or custom development

There are two main ways to open a WeChat store, each with its pros and cons.

1. A third-party WeChat store platform

An existing platform lets you open your WeChat store with its services.

Pros

• It is easy to set up.
• It can be free, or paid with a monthly or yearly fee.
• It suits small businesses, or a new business that is starting.

Cons

• The design cannot be changed.
• You need a valid Chinese phone number and/or a valid business license.
• It does not support Alipay.
• The back office is in Chinese.
• There is no cross-border solution.

2. Your own WeChat store, developed for you

QPSoftware develops independent WeChat e-commerce platforms: a Mini Program, or a WeChat web app in the H5 format.

Pros

• It allows cross-border e-commerce.
• The design is completely customizable.
• It takes WeChat Pay inside WeChat, and other methods such as Alipay or UnionPay when an H5 store is opened in a mobile browser.
• Customers can log in with their WeChat account, an email or a phone number.
• No platform limit on the number of products or simultaneous orders.
• The back office can be in English or any other language.
• No subscription or royalties to a store platform.
• The store can be connected to your CRM, ERP, WMS or OMS through third-party integration (ERP, CRM, logistics).

Cons

• Setup and development take longer, which a first version (MVP) followed by later releases can shorten.
• A larger investment is required.

What QPSoftware delivers for your WeChat store

As an e-commerce agency in China, we deliver the whole store, not only the code:

• Store design adapted to your brand and to WeChat’s design guidelines: home, category, product, cart and delivery pages.
• Checkout with WeChat Pay and, for foreign brands, cross-border payment settled in your currency.
• Promotions: configurable coupons and discounts, sent to the followers of your Official Account to keep them engaged.
• Customer service through your Official Account, where WeChat users are used to asking their questions.
• Back office: products and photos, stock, orders with payment and shipment status, user levels and customer information.
• Integrations with your ERP, CRM or warehouse.

If WeChat Shop fits your business better, we say so during scoping; its APIs can then connect it to your ERP or CRM.

WeChat Pay and cross-border sales

Every WeChat store takes payment with WeChat Pay: Mini Program payment in a Mini Program store, Official Account payment in an H5 store, and the built-in checkout of WeChat Shop. We integrate Chinese payment methods in each format.

WeChat Shop’s onboarding asks for a Chinese business license. Without a company in China, a custom Mini Program or H5 store can take WeChat Pay through a cross-border payment account: the customer pays in RMB, and you are settled in a foreign currency in your bank account abroad. This is the setup we built for Ma France with the GoAllPay platform. Learn how we launch a cross-border store for Chinese buyers, and read our WeChat cross-border e-commerce guide on accounts, logistics and taxes.

How we set up your WeChat store

We work with our agile methodology, from the choice of format to the launch.

1. Format and accounts: Mini Program, WeChat Shop or H5 store; then the Official Account, the Mini Program and the WeChat Pay or cross-border payment account.
2. Design: screens adapted to your brand, to Chinese customers and to WeChat’s design guidelines.
3. Development: catalog, cart, checkout with WeChat Pay, coupons, back office and integrations.
4. Review and launch: tests, then the Mini Program submitted to WeChat for review before release.
5. Growth: your store in the Official Account menu, QR codes, promotions to your followers and new features. Our guide on how to open, run and promote a WeChat store lists promotion techniques.