WeChat is the only viable option in China because no one else is allowed to compete. It's a bloated piece of crap that has borderline become an OS within an OS. "In WeChat, everything’s in one place." Know where else everything is in one place? On your home screen where you can have lots of buttons called apps that do specialized things in a better and more simplified manner than WeChat can.
I run an eCommerce platform, have some experience of this stuff.
It's also only viable in China because in China, the government, companies, and other such organisations are your friends and you have nothing to hide and they are mother and father and you can trust them completely.
In the west - not so much. People generally distrust governments and organisations, and are much less likely to trust the likes of facebook with eCommerce transactions. People won't even use their social media identity to log onto an eCommerce site (well, 0.02% of people will) - so the idea of them buying through a social media platform is fanciful in this observer's mind.
I may well be wrong, but unless there's a major shift in observed consumer behaviour, this isn't a thing outside of those corners of the world that explicitly trust all authorities.
You don't have the option to log into Amazon with Facebook or any other such service. I think Amazon are quite happy keeping their customer information to themselves.
Amazon and Facebook actually partnered in Facebook's early days. Purchases on Amazon would automatically show up in users' news feeds. Headlines at the time were full of things such as "Facebook ruins Christmas" and the like.
Wechat had intense competition in China. And putting competition aside, I find wechat much more convenient and feature rich than other international messaging apps (eg whatsapp).
Last time I visited China I paid for cab rides and bought electronics all within wechat with minimal setup. The mobile commerce maturity and convenience that comes with wechat is years ahead of what Silicon Valley offers.
> Last time I visited China I paid for cab rides and bought electronics all within wechat with minimal setup. The mobile commerce maturity and convenience that comes with wechat is years ahead of what Silicon Valley offers.
What? I was able to do this on AOL in the 90s. How is this progress?
I think he means no cash. And in China people usually don't need to call for cab service. It is more like NY style, you stand on the curbside wait for one
That's bullshit. There are plenty of other social platforms in China. None of them have been able to compete at the level of wechat.
And line has shown that the cramming everything into a chat app is a viable option. Japan has access to all social networks yet decided on using Line by a huge margin.
Ah. Well. I don't know what makes it "bloated". I runs very smooth on my underpowered android phone.
Yes, Facebook is blocked in China but apps like WhatsUp work. I use very little WhatsUp and I think WeChat is far superior.
" of buttons called apps that do specialized things in a better and more simplified manner than WeChat can."
Not sure about this. I can text, call, send pictures end even money very easily. To use a different app and possible in each app every person has an additional ID (hence email, phone number, bank account number etc) would make things very inconvenient.
I would not go into details about all the false claims of this comment. There are plenty in the replies.
I would just gently remind that WeChat is, without a doubt, the most successful SNS product after Facebook. Please show some respect and consideration when trying to claim that it is shitty; which undeniably questions the users' tastes (not saying users are always right, they might like shitty products anyway).
> Please show some respect and consideration when trying to claim that it is shitty; which undeniably questions the users' tastes
So what? If I think WeChat is a shitty product then why can't I say so. Their users use a shitty product, I use products they probably think are shitty.
Hmm, I said "please show some respect and consideration".
Your comment is of mostly unfounded ideas as already pointed by others.
I do not follow "So what?", I am not trying to proclaim some self-righteous ideas. I am just trying to say that what you said is mostly unfounded, and that's not some real respect or consideration for the most successful SNS product after FB.
Like, if I say, Google search sxs, their users use shitty product. Sure I may have some good points to support that, but clearly I was not showing any respect or consideration for Google search's status as the most successful search engine.
Lastly, I am not sure why do you have this kind of attitude towards my comment. I was mostly neutral in my wording. You probably should learn to think and speak in a neutral position, instead of trying to position others as hostile.
I encourage those wishing to learn more from a product design perspective of how WeChat has successfully tied together so many disparate elements to make such a powerful product take a listen to the official WeChat product podcast by WeChat product managers:
https://soundcloud.com/wechatpodcast
This is a great pain in smaller shops that have lunchtime rushes.
Queue of 5-6 people. One customer nearer the front gets out their phone, locates the correct sub-app, scans, waits for confirmation, cashier gets confirmation.
This process, involving phone from pocket, unlocking screen, pressing screen, pressing screen again, scanning QR code for purchase, cashier getting confirmation, takes around 20 seconds (mainly latency on the physical interaction with phone part).
A cash transaction takes much less time.
There are 'bounce' apps that just mean you need to bounce against (hit) someone else 'bouncing', but they reduce the latency little.
Faster than card, but marginally.
/rant (stand in queues a lot)
And then scanning QR codes to add the shop as a 'friend' for a 1 Yuan discount (or demonstrate you've been a 'friend' before, more like a 0.2 Yuan discount). Wow. This can take over a minute.
“I think Americans will be willing to press ‘buy’ if somebody gives them a fucking ‘buy’ button.
I think this every-time I use Paypal on Ebay/Steam type services. While PayPal have many points of criticism, I find it most unbelievable they haven't lead the internet in one-click buying services across internet purchasing.
It might be a difference of taste. The bloated Yahoo home page type of website is popular in the Asian countries but not in America. This seems to be a similar case.
So is the next phase of big Internet companies to make the leap into payment processing and banking?
* The other day we heard about apple's enormous cash stockpile, focus on security, and risk management capacity, which positions them well to become a depositor bank.
* Samsung is pushing Samsung pay everywhere it can
* sounds like Facebook should add a "buy" button to Pages and pull a wechat.
How does this matter seriously? It's been a while since I have had a problem making payments anywhere in the world, or even on crappy e-commerce sites anywhere in the world.
I think it matters because many countries have enormous populations without computers, which means the current state of e-commerce needs to be made mobile friendly (and low bandwidth/high latency) to make sales. I think they are also implying that WeChat is going to beat Facebook to the next billion users internationally.
I don't buy this narrative. It's been used for a while to raise funds to "scale up".
The truth I fear is, if the bottom of the pyramid cant afford a computer, how much do you think they are going to be spending out of their empty mobile wallets. And then some wise ass will say but look they are spending.
The truth is they are being manipulated into spending, just like the suckers who were tricked into mortgages they couldn't afford. Who else does one think is clicking the infinite supply online ads.
