WECHAT IS A PLATFORM TO WATCH FOR E-COMMERCE TRENDS IN 2025

Tencent has never been good at e-commerce. It once transferred all its e-commerce initiatives to JD (Jingdong) because that partner was one of the market leaders and more experienced.

Still, many things are being sold on WeChat. On the one hand, there are WeChat (Mini) Stores of merchants. There are options to sell and livestream in WeChat Channels (although much less aggressively positioned than in Douyin), and there are countless mini-programs through which products and services are sold. WeChat Stores GMV almost doubled in 2024 and in 2024 Q3 2 trillion yuan was transacted through mini programs. However, WeChat has always been a facilitator, much more than a full-fledged e-commerce platform.

Now, there are signs Tencent is reconsidering monetisation through e-commerce. First, in mid-December, news broke that WeChat launched a new ‘sending gifts’ functionality. About ten years ago, WeChat digitized and revolutionized the ‘hong bao’ (red package), which is traditionally given as a gift (putting money in a red envelope makes it ‘lucky money’). It was one of the success factors of WeChat Pay. Now, merchants can also allow WeChat users to pick products and send them as gifts to their contacts. As with red envelopes, receivers of a gift can accept or reject it. When they accept, they must enter their shipping address, and the merchant will dispatch the goods.

Since gift-giving is very common in China, much is expected from this new functionality. Taobao and Douyin seem to be worried enough that they have launched similar options. But they will miss the social network that WeChat has.

Another indicator is that e-commerce was prominently featured in the annual WeChat Open Class held on January 9th. It revealed that offline merchants can also enable customers to send gifts (by scanning a QR code). What’s more, WeChat wants to strengthen the link between various parts of its ecosystem: mini-programs, WeChat Stores and Service Accounts (not a bad idea because the relation between these has always been a bit confusing).

The idea is that WeChat stores will be where transactions and after-sales occur, mini-programs will be for functional services, memberships and marketing and service accounts should drive retention and repurchase. Mini programs will be like brand websites where people learn about brands. The WeChat Stores are where they buy, and they will become fans by following Service Accounts.

WeChat has always been restrained in e-commerce, using strict review standards, high deposits, and many product categories were restricted. However, in the Open Class, it was announced that WeChat would open all categories, lower commissions, and no longer request deposits.

It seems like Tencent is going to give e-commerce another try.

Pictures below are machine translations from slides at the WeChat Open Class. Source: 36Kr