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the payment interconnection and interoperability between the two giants, alibaba and tencent, has made another major breakthrough.

on september 4, a beijing business daily reporter learned from an informed source that the taobao app will soon fully support wechat payment.

however, as of 13:00 on september 4, a beijing business daily reporter noticed that wechat pay has not yet appeared on the taobao app. in response, taobao's official customer service also said that wechat pay is still in the trial stage and has not yet been fully opened. please check the payment page to see whether the user's order can be used.

in fact, from the perspective of users’ actual perception, the introduction of wechat pay into taobao has been in the works for nearly a year.

as early as october 2023, many netizens reported that the option of "wechat scan code to pay" appeared on the taobao payment page, and they could also "go to wechat to ask friends to help me pay."

taobao responded that the wechat qr code scanning payment function is still being gradually opened up, and is currently only available to some users, and only some products support this payment method. whether it can be used is subject to the page display.

image source: taobao

at the beginning of 2024, many netizens discovered that some taobao orders could be directly transferred to wechat pay for payment.

jiupai news consulted taobao's online customer service and learned that wechat pay is a service launched by taobao and is gradually opening up to pay for taobao orders through wechat. it is currently only gradually opening up to some users and is only available when purchasing some products.

however, taobao customer service also stated that the wechat payment function is currently only gradually opened to some users, but the function will gradually be fully covered in the future, and "this time will not be too long."

image source: jiupai news

in the industry’s view, if taobao fully integrates into wechat pay, it also means that the previously closed system between giants will gradually become open, which can achieve a win-win situation for all parties.

for a long time, the payment ecosystems of domestic internet giants have been in a state of disconnection and mutual shielding. until july 2021, china unionpay cloud quickpass app, known as the "national team" of payment, began to plan interconnection with the platform, and took the lead in opening interoperability cooperation with alipay, and actively explored areas such as online payment and offline barcode interoperability.

in 2022, when the two major payment platforms, wechat pay and alipay, have not yet been substantially interconnected, the unionpay quickpass app has quietly completed the coverage of multiple mainstream e-commerce platforms such as taobao, all wechat mini-programs, jd.com, pinduoduo, etc. in 2022.

the accelerated demolition of walls between platforms is not bad news for alipay, taobao’s “own” payment platform.

from the actual results, this is not the first time that taobao has introduced more payment companies. alipay has provided taobao with new payment channels more than once. taobao's payment page still prefers alipay, and alipay will continue to provide services for taobao in the future.

in addition, jiupai news found that although the taobao app does not currently support wechat pay, the same products can already be purchased through wechat pay in the taobao special edition app. it is reported that taobao special edition is an app under alibaba, which was launched in 2020 and renamed "tao te" in 2021.

it is worth mentioning that the account data of taobao special edition and taobao are the same. many netizens suggested, "after placing an order on taobao, just go to the shopping cart of taobao special edition and use wechat to pay."

source: jiupai news, beijing business daily, jiemian news, previous reports, etc.