The new online shopping element has been added in the WeChat app in a challenge to rivals Alibaba and JD.
Called Minishop, the new tool by Tencent allows merchants to build a virtual store on WeChat and potentially pits Tencent again e-commerce giants JD.com and Alibaba.
Businesses and merchants will be allowed to sign up for a test of the e-commerce product, known as WeChat Minishop. WeChat is China’s most popular messaging app with over a billion users. It is a key part of life in the world’s second-largest economy.
Tencent has had so-called e-commerce “mini-programs” or apps within its WeChat messaging service for a while.
But this new tool will allow a vendor to create an e-commerce mini-program inside WeChat using Tencent’s tool instead of relying on expensive developers. It won’t be a centralised system like JD.com or Alibaba’s Taobao, but it could help Tencent draw away smaller businesses away from these platforms.
