PR86745

TOKYO, Nov. 19, 2020 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

The rampant global pandemic in 2020 has battered the retail industry in Japan,

with those retailers heavily reliant on foreign consumers and tourists most affected.

https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1336464/image.jpg

(WeChat Applet Helps Japanese Merchants Achieve New Cross-border E-commerce

Growth in Chinese Market despite the Pandemic)

Facing a stagnant tourism market and restricted foot traffic in

brick-and-mortar locations, the retail industry is trapped in a financial

downturn. Against this background, cross-border e-commerce solutions, mostly

dominated by WeChat Mini Programs, have received much attention. By setting up

cross-border direct-mail online stores in WeChat and leveraging products in the

WeChat ecosystem including Mini programs, Official Accounts, WeChat Groups and

livestreaming, more and more Japanese brick-and-mortar retailers have

successfully connected with Chinese consumers, bringing much needed relief and

recovery to businesses.

From this emerging market trend, TSURUHA Drug stands out especially as a key player.

Diversion through WeChat Ecology Achieves up to 20% Share Ratio for TSURUHA Applet

As the largest cosmeceuticals group in Japan, TSURUHA Drug officially launched

its TSURUHA Drug WeChat Mini Program in October 2020. Unlike physical stores

which charge a consumption tax on top of products, the Mini Program store

exclusively sells products at prices exempt from this tax and offers 1400+SKUs,

allowing Chinese consumers to shop for cosmeceuticals online at home.

According to public data, WeChat has more than 1.2 billion monthly active users

in China and worldwide, and WeChat Pay has more than 800 million monthly active

users. Utilizing WeChat Mini Program as part of a merchant's cross-border

business strategy provides access to these 1.2 billion WeChat users and

prospective customers. On this basis and facilitated by the social sharing

function of WeChat, friends and WeChat groups can be directed to share

information. In addition, official accounts, recommendation upon payment, and

other marketing capabilities can help facilitate continuous user conversions

and bring incremental users to merchants' applets.

In the TSURUHA Drug WeChat Mini Program, the Mini Program, product pages,

coupon activity and other information can be shared promptly via WeChat social

chains, enabling compelling word-of-mouth product recommendations and special

offers among friends, creating exposure and increased conversion for brand

owners. According to the Mini Program's background data, the share ratio of the

TSURUHA Drug Applet is as high as 20%, which means that for every five persons,

there is one actively involved with the sharing and recommending of the Mini

Program, bringing additional traffic and business growth to the brand.

As said by Miura Kazuyuki, Managing Director of TSURUHA: "With WeChat, TSURUHA

Drug is able to connect with 1.2 billion Chinese consumers and focus on

transforming corporate and brand fans into core fans and building private

domain traffic pools by leveraging private domain tools such as official

accounts, WeChat communities, and Mini Programs, which help TSURUHA achieve

business growth while better supplying quality local Japanese products to

consumers across China."

Compared with the time and space limits imposed by physical stores, the

merchants use WeChat Mini Programs to make available their shops 24/7, enabling

Chinese consumers to do "cloud shopping" at home at any time.

Through the "Mini Program + community + official account", WeChat not only

helps TSURUHA Drug form an "integrated online and offline independent brand

management position", but also builds a core environment to activate and

maintain fans. The official account lies at the entrance to traffic acquisition

and maintenance, while the community is the site of traffic growth and

maintenance. Finally, the Mini Program enables transaction conversion, thus

enabling a total private domain transformation platform to be built.

Since its launch, the TSURUHA Drug Mini Program has achieved significant

transactions growth, reaching about 50% of their offline WeChat payment sales

in the same period of 2019 during its opening period. Moreover, the average

number of visits to the TSURUHA Drug Mini Program is up by 80 times per day,

with high user viscosity and strong shopping demand.

Uniquely different from other e-commerce platforms, WeChat Mini Program can

drive user traffic and user data accumulation back to merchants themselves,

which is useful for merchants to continue their operations and build their

brand data assets. In addition, compared with the original "once-for-all deal"

(the idea of consumers returning to China after a once-off offline purchase),

it can more effectively improve the re-purchase rate of Chinese consumers and

bring continuous growth to merchants.

According to the background profile data of the Mini Program, more than 70% of

users are female, which makes TSURUHA Drug confident in the increment of

Chinese market, "with the help of the WeChat Mini Program, we shift from

physical stores in Japan to an online platform facing China, providing Chinese

consumers with a new channel to buy Japanese cosmeceutical products. We've had

pretty good growth since we started a month ago, and this is just the beginning."

SOURCE:  WeChat

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   Caption: WeChat Applet Helps Japanese Merchants Achieve New Cross-border E-commerce

Growth in Chinese Market despite the Pandemic