WeChat Retail Growth Plan Drives Digital Transformation

GUANGZHOU, China, April 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- WeChat launched WeChat Retail Growth Plan and announced during the online event that WeChat would introduce specific measures aimed at supporting and facilitating the recovery and growth of the retail industry. These measures are meant to help global businesses and brands strengthen their understanding of WeChat's tools, so they can efficiently leverage WeChat's ecosystem to better resolve the challenges created by the pandemic.

Unlocking Functionality to Help Drive Retail

Offline traffic at brick and mortal retail stores has drastically declined due to COVID-19, forcing many retailers to proactively obtain online traffic. In February, WeChat opened up WeChat Live, helping businesses to interact with customers and generate sales via Mini Program livestreaming. During the pandemic, WeChat Work became a key platform for remote working, and was utilized by a number of enterprises to connect customers with online business expansion efforts. From customer acquisition to transaction, WeChat Pay is a key step in helping to achieving closed loop transactions as it has penetrated every aspect of Chinese users' lives and covers 16 currencies in 60 countries and regions worldwide.

Chow Tai Fook, DFS and Farfetch provide solid examples of how businesses can optimize their use of WeChat's array of functions to serve customers.

Chow Tai Fook: WeChat Work Empowers Shopping Guides

The jewelry industry places a heavy emphasis on the offline customer experience, something the pandemic has had a great impact on. Chow Tai Fook, a jewelry brand with over 3,000 stores, was still able to satisfy consumer shopping needs due to early deployment of online retail channels.

Chow Tai Fook's CloudSales 365, an integrated online-to-offline tool developed on WeChat Work, connected the back-end information, content centers and CRMs of Chinese and international locations. This made it possible for the company to more deeply engage with customers. Staffs can continue to keep in touch with customers even after they leave the store using WeChat Work, personalizing recommendations based on customer preferences to facilitate sales. Regarding Deputy General Manager Surrey Pau, the platform helped Chow Tai Fook achieve "employee empowerment."

DFS: Creating a New Shopping Experience with WeChat

DFS, located in airports and city centers around the world, offer numerous items and goods important to Chinese travelers. Although the pandemic is significantly affecting global tourism, DFS has managed to achieve great results toward digital transformation with the help of WeChat's ecosystem.

DFS established its own membership program within WeChat. Specifically, the "DFS T VIP Club Mini Program" converts overseas brick-and-mortar shoppers into online members by allowing users to continue enjoying various member-only services following purchases. Over one million members have joined since the launch of the DFS Mini Program.

Farfetch: The story of cross-border E-commerce Marketplace in WeChat Ecosystem

Farfetch, the largest international luxury fashion e-commerce platform, proved its strategic investment in China has progressed in an incredibly powerful way that the GMV of China region grew faster than the overall marketplace during the global health pandemic.

Farfetch envisions building a MATRIX in WeChat, stretching from content (Official Account), marketplace (Mini Programs), to direct engagement with users (chat groups). Today's success of Farfetch KOCs chat groups came from the well curated stylist e-workshops, organic fashion interest sharing and more. Furthermore, on April 15, Farfetch held its first WeChat Live, inviting popular fashion blogger to assist three Farfetch product developers to style themselves. The livestream incorporated real-time product recommendations, professional customer service, and reality show drama. These added-value services effectively accumulated to increase customer stickiness and retention. The sales came organically from users to users, not from Farfetch pushing.

WeChat Helps Overseas Retailers Overcome the Covid-19 Challenge

Faced with the challenges brought about by COVID-19, companies will most likely redouble their efforts in exploring new models of online and offline integration. For retailers who previously emphasized offline operations, digitalization will present unique challenges. As such, WeChat has launched a number of supportive policies to provide merchants with resources at every level.

If you're a business interested in joining the WeChat Retail Growth Plan to digitally transform and upgrade sales, services, traffic and brand operations by leveraging WeChat's ecosystem, you can submit an application at WeChatgo@tencent.com.