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starting from september 12, taobao and tmall officially added wechat payment capabilities and gradually opened them to all merchants.

image source: daily economic news data map

on september 5, taobao and tmall respectively released the "announcement on the addition of wechat payment capabilities on taobao" and the "announcement on the addition of wechat payment capabilities on tmall", stating that in order to enhance consumers' shopping experience, they plan to add wechat payment capabilities and gradually open them to all sellers (merchants) seven days after the announcement. this adjustment was announced on september 5, 2024.effective september 12, 2024。

on september 4, taobao released the "opinion collection on the addition of wechat payment capability to taobao". in order to improve the shopping experience of consumers, taobao plans to add wechat payment capability and adjust the platform rules after the opinion collection is completed. it is reported that this adjustment will cover all taobao and tmall merchants.

some netizens said: "it's finally here, we've waited for this day for too long" and "that's great."

taobao and tmall responded to the reporter of daily economic news that they have always adhered to the concept of open cooperation, actively explored interoperability and cooperation with various platforms, and continuously improved the shopping experience of consumers, making their shopping more convenient, pleasant and efficient. alipay also said that openness, collaboration, innovation and sharing are the basic spirit of the internet and the general trend of industry development. alipay will continue to deepen strategic cooperation with taotian group, increase technological innovation and product innovation, and continue to create greater value for merchants and consumers.

tencent responded to the securities times that the function adaptation with taobao platform merchants is being launched, and please pay attention to the taobao platform announcement for the specific launch time.

according to the securities times, the introduction of wechat pay by taobao and tmall means that alibabathe interconnection between the two companies, tencent, has taken a step closer to substance, and is a landmark event in the "great wall-breaking" of the internet.

pan helin, a member of the information and communication economy expert committee of the ministry of industry and information technology, told the reporter of the daily economic news that the integration of taobao and tmall into wechat pay is a win-win situation. the former can attract traffic from wechat users and convert it into performance, while the latter greatly expands the application ecosystem, which is a big benefit.

data source: people's bank of china, gf securities development research center yang jing chart

over the years, regulatory authorities have repeatedly proposed that the internet should truly return to "interconnection". in september 2021, the relevant business departments of the ministry of industry and information technology held an "administrative guidance meeting on blocking url links". at the meeting, the ministry of industry and information technology proposed compliance standards for instant messaging software, requiring that all platforms must lift the blocking according to the standards within a time limit, otherwise disposal measures will be taken in accordance with the law. companies including alibaba, tencent, bytedance, baidu, huawei, etc. attended the meeting.

at a press conference held in the same month of the same year, the ministry of industry and information technology further stated that the ministry of industry and information technology has adopted various forms such as administrative guidance meetings to further help enterprises realize that interconnection is an inevitable choice for the high-quality development of the internet industry, and that allowing users to use the internet smoothly and safely is also the direction of the internet industry. at the same time, it also requires enterprises to be able to pragmatically promote different types of problems such as blocking url links in instant messaging in accordance with rectification requirements, so that they can be solved in steps and stages.

regarding the new payment methods added by taobao and tmall, alipay previously responded: "openness, collaboration, innovation and sharing are the basic spirit of the internet and the general trend of industry development. alipay will uphold this spirit and continue to deepen strategic cooperation with taobao group, increase technological innovation and product innovation, and continue to create greater value for merchants and consumers. we firmly believe that openness creates a greater future. alipay will increase open cooperation not only in payment products, but also in internet technology, ai technology products and a wider ecosystem, to help the vitality and prosperity of the digital economy and open up a larger business space for the alipay platform."

wechat pay also responded: "wechat pay adheres to the concept of open cooperation and actively explores interoperability and cooperation with various platforms. currently, the function adaptation with the taobao platform is being opened."

kuang yuqing, founder of lens research, told the reporter of daily economic news that the fact that taobao and tmall will be connected to wechat pay is "very significant" both symbolically and practically. ecological barriers between various internet ecosystems have always existed. if the boundaries between alibaba's top ecosystem and tencent's top ecosystem can be broken, it will have a significant positive impact on platform anti-monopoly and the mutual opening and connection of various internet ecosystems.

kuang yuqing believes that the penetration rates of both payment tools are extremely high, which will undoubtedly bring a better shopping experience to consumers.

according to alibaba's latest financial report, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, taobao and tmall's performance continued the growth trend of the previous quarter. taobao group's total merchandise volume (gmv) increased by a high single digit year-on-year, the number of buyers and purchase frequency continued to grow, and the order volume achieved a double-digit year-on-year growth. during the entire 6.18 period this year, taobao and tmall's transaction volume increased by 12.0% year-on-year, exceeding the average growth rate of comprehensive e-commerce platforms; the market share accounted for 49.5% of the transaction volume of major e-commerce platforms.

it is worth noting that on may 20, jd pay and wechat pay realized interconnection and became the first third-party payment institution in the industry to simultaneously connect wechat personal code and merchant code. at that time, the reporter of "daily economic news" learned from jd that the beneficiaries of the interconnection between jd pay and wechat pay involved the vast majority of mobile payment users represented by small and medium-sized micro-enterprises and consumers. in terms of user scale, market information shows that the number of jd pay users exceeds 500 million, and the number of wechat pay users exceeds 1 billion.

previously, there have been several reports online that taobao and tmall can use wechat payment.

in february this year, many users found that in addition to alipay, wechat pay was added to the payment options when they placed orders on taobao. taobao customer service responded that this was a testing feature that was only available to some users, and that the full release date would be determined by the page display.

"the function is still under testing and not all orders are covered. however, we will gradually cover all orders in the future, and this time will not be too long," taobao customer service said at the time.

it is understood that in 2023, taobao has tried to open wechat payment. however, at that time, users were required to save the qr code before paying, which was cumbersome and "dissuaded" some users. later, taobao optimized the program so that users can jump directly to payment when shopping. the user experience of wechat payment has been aligned with alipay.

daily economic news comprehensive securities times, daily economic news (reporter chen ting), public information

daily economic news