Alipay or WeChat Pay: which one to choose for your business?

WeChat Pay and Alipay have both become the most important payment e-wallets in China now. Alipay was launched in 2004 while its biggest competitor WeChat Pay was launched much later in 2011.

Alipay and WeChat are two necessary tools, which are installed in almost every smartphone in China. The majority of Chinese are the 2 Apps’ users. But since they are both the most popular mobile payment methods, are they totally the same? The answer is no.

Users have shown different preferences on when to use Alipay and WeChat Pay. Your business should do the same depending on different criteria. In this article, we will detail the differences between Alipay and WeChat Pay and help you know which one is more adapted to your business.

Large transactions VS small transactions:

Although merchants normally accept both Alipay and WeChat Pay, when the transaction amount and the business size are small (street vendors for example), clients prefer paying with WeChat Pay.

Thus, WeChat Pay is more often used in small-scale transactions due to WeChat’s simple interface. Interestingly, this e-wallet is more welcomed in small-medium cities in China.

Typical WeChat Pay payment use:

Despite the fact that Alipay and WeChat Pay can both be used to make transactions of large amounts, users prefer to pay via WeChat Pay for daily life transactions:

- A student scans the WeChat Pay QR code in a vending machine to buy a bottle of water on campus.

- Consumers pay very easily with WeChat Pay in some e-commerce platforms like Jingdong.

- Clients checkout by showing his Wechat Pay QR code at the checkout in the supermarket.

- Game players use WeChat pay to top-up their game accounts.

When it comes to larger transactions, users prefer paying with Alipay. Because it is a professional payment platform that provides more functions than WeChat Pay. It also has a very strict security system to protect the users’ data.

Typical Alipay payment use:

- The client pays for a necklace in a jewelry shop

- Chinese visitors scan Alipay QR code to pay for luxury cosmetics in France

- Parents pay for their son or daughter’s tuition fee abroad which can go up to ten thousands of euros.

Maximum transaction amount for Alipay and WeChat Pay:

- Alipay: No limit to accept payments. And the maximum amount per single transaction is 25,000 € which is very high.

- WeChat Pay: No limit to accept payments.

Clients have the opportunity to shop freely with Alipay and WeChat Pay.

Merchant benefits:

Because of the different traits of the two e-wallets. They have differentiated their support for merchants.

WeChat Pay:

WeChat Pay allows merchants to establish a client portfolio based on the WeChat network. Allen Zhang, WeChat and WeChat Pay’s founder, wants his giant e-wallet to be a part of WeChat’s ecosystem, instead of being an independent App. As a result, WeChat Pay relies heavily on WeChat’s 1 billion users network who eventually became WeChat Pay’s users too.

Merchants can also create a WeChat Official Account or WeChat Mini-program to launch their marketing campaigns or to attract more visitors by creating an online community.

Alipay:

Besides mobile payment, Alipay offers its merchants marketing services:

Merchants can give away coupons via Alipay
Businesses can be recommended to users in their Alipay APP
Merchants can create Alipay mini-programs to sell their products

Age category of users:

It has been proved that WeChat Pay is more popular among middle-aged and older users. It is very simple to use for this category of consumers. While Alipay has more complex features that make it hard for the elders to pay using Alipay.

Security:

Both Alipay and WeChat Pay security measures are not to question. Very high technologies are used in order to make sure all transactions are safe and all data is protected.

These can include biometric login, passwords, automatic security check and fraud alerts for suspicious payments. These payments are flagged for investigation to prevent fraud.

Frequent investigations are not strange behind the scenes of these 2 giant mobile payment companies. Making sure no fraud can happen is their priority.

International and cross-border payments:

It is very simple to accept international payments through both WeChat Pay and Alipay. Clients just need to scan WeChat Pay or Alipay QR code in the payment page or click the payment link you send them via email or social media to pay.

However, Alipay is 1 step ahead of WeChat Pay in accepting cross-border payments. Alipay has launched the revolutionary Alipay Plus payment in 2022. By integrating only 1 system, it allows merchants to accept the major e-wallets in all Asia-Pacific (Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, India…).

This system is both for e-commerce and physical stores. Thus, merchants can even accept payments from 2 billion consumers without leaving their country.

Merchant support:

In WeChat Pay and Alipay, an automatic system is often used to judge risks or fraud. It is not likely for fraud to happen. However, if there is an urgent situation that seems like a fraud, the customer service is always available via phone call or directly from the APP. WeChat Pay will assist the merchants to deal with any situation.

In Europe, when accepting Alipay or WeChat Pay with Silkpay, the merchant doesn’t have to deal with their customer service directly as they only speak Chinese. Our Chinese team will take care of resolving all your issues by communicating with Alipay and WeChat Pay directly.

Bottom line:

Both Alipay and WeChat Pay have their advantages and disadvantages. Choosing which one to integrate to your business depends on the type of your activity and on your target audience. However, if you are uncertain about which one to accept, or if you are afraid to lose a big client base by accepting only one of them, you can definitely accept both of them.

Sources:

https://mr.mbd.baidu.com/r/RDDWDgRugM?f=cp&u=b0c7e0b7c986e858