Print
Email
In December 2016, WeChat and Starbucks have announced collaboration to offer social gifting feature to their customers. The partnership enables WeChat users to gift Starbucks’ products via the newly integrated feature ‘Say it with Starbucks’. The recipient receives the gift within WeChat, which can be claimed by displaying it at any Starbucks outlet in China. Beverages priced from CNY31 or digital gift cards up to CNY500 are eligible for gifting. The feature went live in February 2017 when gifting becomes trend for the Chinese New Year.
The country's digital gift card market in terms of transaction value is expected to record a CAGR of 12.7% during 2017-2021 to reach US$ 43,997.4 million by 2021, increasing from US$ 27,266.2 million in 2017. Over the last five years the sector has recorded a CAGR of 17.2%, increasing from US$ 12,615.9 million in 2012 to reach US$ 23,776.1 million in 2016.
WeChat currently has over 768 million users and offers services such as ecommerce, taxi-hailing, payments, apart from basic chat features. The deal with Starbucks is the first for WeChat to offer social gifting. The collaboration is expected to extend to accepting WeChat Pay at across 2,500 outlets in China.
The concept of social gifting evolved post ecommerce and social commerce. Social gifting provides online retailers the advantage of luring more customers to buy their products. Starbucks is a late entrant to social gifting in China as other luxury fashion brands have already utilized the feature earlier. In early 2016, Burberry launched a campaign where followers were offered red envelops that users could digitally fill and with money and send to friends via WeChat. By collaborating with WeChat, Starbucks can add loyal customers to its portfolio.
To know more and gain deeper understanding of prepaid gift card industry in china, click here
Sign up for The PayNXT360 Insights, and get a weekly roundup of market events, innovations and data you can trust and use.
Sign Up Now
