SnapPay, Inc., provider of international payment solutions, today announced how small and independent businesses can easily offer popular Chinese mobile payment applications, Alipay and WeChat Pay.
Offering Chinese mobile payments provides small businesses in North America the opportunity to secure substantial incremental revenue and drive customer loyalty. With SnapPay’s payment gateway, retailers and merchants can accept preferred Chinese payment methods with minimal effort and training time.
SnapPay provides a payment solution that enables consumers to digitally pay in Chinese currency, while merchants get paid in Canadian (or U.S.) currency. SnapPay lowers the cost per transaction for both merchant and consumer, while providing a better customer experience by offering Chinese consumers the option to pay with the mobile apps and currency they are familiar with.
“Implementing SnapPay was very simple; it took only one-day to integrate into our POS, and now Chinese mobile payments account for a significant percent of all transactions,” said Christopher Sidhu, Owner at Due West, an independent fashion retailer since 1973, offering premium men's and women's outerwear, apparel, footwear and accessories in the heart of Queen West, one of downtown Toronto's busiest trendy shopping destinations. “We’ve seen a notable increase in foot traffic and revenue since adopting SnapPay and offering Chinese mobile payment options to our customers.”
SnapPay provides robust marketing solutions for clients in their native language on Chinese social platforms to drive consumer community engagement with brands at a local, hyper-targeted level. Engaging consumers on Alipay and WeChat Pay is critical to drive spend.
“By offering Alipay and WeChat Pay, Canadian and U.S. small and large businesses are enhancing the shopping, dining and entertainment experience, while saving money for millions of Chinese shoppers, visitors and students,” said Spencer Xu, CEO, SnapPay, Inc. “Merchants typically see a marked increase in revenue from their Chinese customer segment after deploying SnapPay and our related promotional programs.”
“After adopting SnapPay, the company helped us with an initial Alipay coupon promotion, and sales and adoption instantly started to take off,” said Vienna Liu, owner and operator of CHIC XI, an upscale, Chinese-Cantonese restaurant in Toronto’s North York neighbourhood. “Many of our customers travel more than an hour to experience our home style, authentic Cantonese cuisine, but also because they can use Alipay and WeChat Pay, which gives them access to funds they otherwise wouldn’t have. Our estimate is that customers spend 10-15% more when they have the option to pay with Alipay or WeChat Pay.”
The number of Chinese visitors, immigrants and students in Canada per year, has been steadily rising; providing small businesses with an opportunity to capitalize on a large and ever-increasing customer segment. According to Destination Canada, there were 737,000 visitors from China in 2018, doubling the number of annual travellers since 2013, with an average annual growth rate of 16%.
“Offering Alipay and WeChat Pay has been responsible for a critical part of our growth,” said Peter Yuan, manager of Neptune Chinese Kitchen, a Vancouver-based restaurant, part of Neptune Restaurant Group, a network of 12 Chinese restaurants in the Greater Vancouver area (GVA). “We’re close to the University of British Columbia (UBC) and International Chinese students don’t have discretionary money, and don’t have credit cards. Alipay and WeChat Pay provides these students a new funding source. In just 3-months since turning on SnapPay and offering Chinese mobile payments, we’ve seen our sales skyrocket 30 percent. And we estimate that spending per visit has increased 20 percent for customers that use Alipay or WeChat Pay.”
“Alipay and WeChat Pay provide the ultimate convenience for our customers that include Chinese visitors and students, travelling and studying abroad,” said Calvin Su, owner and operator of Butter Baker, the popular downtown Toronto bake shop at Bay & Dundas. Butter Baker offers a unique selection of sweet and savoury pastries, ice cream, hot & cold beverages, and more. It uses fresh, natural, local, in-season organic ingredients and provides a fusion of French-style food, combined with rich, Taiwanese flavour. “SnapPay made it easy to start accepting Chinese mobile payments, and as customers learn they can use Alipay and WeChat Pay, we’ve seen a substantial increase in repeat business.”