WeChat PK Alipay, mobile life has just begun.

Wechat and Alipay have been "following each other" recently. At the beginning of May, WeChat and Alipay announced their cooperation with Carrefour supermarket chains, and they will be able to pay with WeChat and Alipay wallet at Carrefour offline outlets. Prior to this, the two companies almost simultaneously announced the provision of urban service mobile platforms in 15 cities across the country, trying to "go hand in hand" in the field of public services. Similar time, similar service, following the taxi software, the two companies once again played a "catch-up" in the field of life service, so that users waiting for red envelopes will inevitably get excited. I wonder what the two companies are doing this time.

The IT Times reporter experienced the payment and service of Alipay and WeChat in the city on the spot to see whether it is "two brothers are good" or "life and death".

Mobile Payment: "Good Brothers" Against UnionPay

coverage area

Alipay: The whole family, Haode, Costco, Agriculture, Industry, Carrefour and many other supermarkets have begun to accept Alipay wallet scanning code payment.

Wechat Payment: Some retail supermarkets under Haodehe Agriculture, Industry and Commerce support it, and other supermarkets all said that it will take some time.

Conclusion: Alipay wins.

Entrance position

Alipay: the payment code is set in the first-level directory, and you can swipe the code when you open it.

Wechat payment: the entrance is deep, and you need to enter the secondary directory of WeChat-wallet to find the payment code. From opening the wallet, entering the wallet, entering the password to completing the payment, there are five steps to be completed.

Conclusion: Alipay wins.

User usage frequency

Observation location: Dragon Dream Carrefour Supermarket in Zhongshan Park

The eye-catching position of the cash register is affixed with the eye-catching Alipay payment logo, but the number of users who actively use Alipay is still a minority. The reporter observed for 5 minutes and found that most customers still use cash or bank card to pay by credit card. However, the supermarket staff introduced that Alipay wallets have discounts on weekends for three days, and 7 out of 10 customers will use Alipay wallets.

Conclusion "If there are discounts, there will be no interest" is a practical dilemma faced by retailers accessing Alipay and WeChat payment offline.

Offline team: Alipay has no ability to exclude WeChat payment

"WeChat is a hardware interface that gradually opened offline scanning code in the second half of last year. Many companies are still gradually improving their technical standards. Therefore, the promotion speed is slower than Alipay." Hangzhou Yiling Technology is one of the national agents authorized by Alipay. After promoting Alipay wallet for two years, they launched the offline promotion business of WeChat payment. In their view, as long as Alipay does not put forward "exclusive requirements", the more mobile payments, the better.

Agents have little interest in individual promotion and payment by bill.

As an Internet company, when Alipay develops offline business, except for some large enterprises such as Carrefour, most small enterprises use Alipay cashier, which is authorized to be promoted and operated by offline service providers.

According to the "IT Times" reporter, there are 8 first-level agents directly authorized by Alipay nationwide, and these agents have hundreds of second-level dealers nationwide to promote them. Through this huge network, the coverage of Alipay offline payment outlets has gradually matured.

"Our main business is to provide O2O solutions for offline shops. Offline receipt is only one of them. It is mainly service-oriented and it is basically difficult to make a profit." Mr. Sun, who previously promoted Alipay’s offline payment business in Zibo, Shandong Province, has now quit. "As a secondary agent, in the first year, the rate of 6‰ of merchants’ turnover was all put into Alipay accounts, and dealers could not take it. Only in the second year can there be a 37% or 46% share, but we are basically small and medium-sized merchants, and it is difficult to make a profit."

At present, most Alipay push teams rely on online solution packaging to make profits. The charging standard of an Alipay service window obtained by the reporter shows that the initial construction fee for creating a membership and marketing data analysis platform ranges from 5,600 yuan to 16,800 yuan, and then 20% of it will be charged as a service fee every year. These are the keys to the profitability of these offline enterprises.

The low rate of WeChat is more attractive to agents.

Since the second half of last year, WeChat Pay has gradually opened the hardware interface of offline payment. So far, there are only two or three service enterprises in China that have the ability to conduct offline scanning code payment of WeChat Pay, but these enterprises have basically had mature experience in the offline promotion of Alipay. "One of the conditions for the opening of WeChat payment is the technical ability to improve the interface, and the other is the offline outlet." A person from the first batch of Qiding Yunshang authorized by WeChat payment interface introduced that only companies that have done Alipay have the strength to pick up such conditions.

Although the offline promotion of WeChat payment started late, it has great support for the acquiring rate of core merchants, which is attractive enough for agents. "The rate of WeChat payment in the first year is 3‰, and in the second year, it is divided into 37%, the secondary agent takes seven, and the primary agent takes three. This is significantly greater than the current 4.8‰ support that Alipay gives to first-class agents. " Therefore, some enterprises choose to withdraw from Alipay promotion and invest in offline promotion of WeChat payment.

For traditional entity merchants, whether Alipay or WeChat payment, compared with the traditional bill collection mode, both of them have the advantages of real-time receipt and lower rate. "The traditional bill collection rate is 1%~1.2%, and Alipay and WeChat are much lower than this figure. The actual profit-making will encourage merchants to gradually change the cashier method." In the eyes of the industry, at this stage, whether Alipay leads or WeChat comes from behind, neither of them has the conditions for competition. "What they have to do now is to join hands with UnionPay to compete for the market."

Urban service: It is far from the time of competition.

Shanghai is a must for Alipay and WeChat to open pilot cities. At present, the number of services provided by the two companies is between 10 and 12, among which Alipay provides personalized "scenic spot booking" and "marriage registration reservation", while WeChat city services include "housing tax payment" and "tax invoice information inquiry". The rest, including traffic inquiries and payment of water, electricity and coal fees, are all the same services.

Wechat’s service page is displayed in a list, which is divided into two categories: government service and life service. There are several categories under each category, and the overall page style is relatively blunt. Alipay’s city service page is tiled with icons, and each function item is distributed in a tabular form, with a refreshing overall color scheme and style. Among them, Alipay’s weather conditions and traffic restrictions are directly displayed at the top, while WeChat "hides" this information in the sub-column under the life service category, with a picture of the city at the top.

When using some functions, WeChat "City Service" is obviously not smooth. For example, under the "medical service" project, WeChat only accesses the registered network, while Alipay also has several local hospitals. Enter the "quick appointment" of the registered network platform through WeChat. The hospitals displayed in the list cannot be opened, but they can be opened in Alipay for further operation.

In addition, both of them are connected to the library inquiry system in Shanghai. The reporter inquired about the book "Social Animals" on WeChat, and it was blank. However, when he inquired about the book through Alipay, there were three results. The reporter continued to inquire about several books and found that ordinary books such as "One Thousand and One Nights" and "Economics" could be found on WeChat, but slightly professional books might not be found.

In terms of living expenses, Alipay has more types of fees than WeChat, such as fixed-line broadband, cable TV, traffic violations and property fees. And you can save the manual input of the bill number by similar "sweeping".

As far as the current overall usage is concerned, Alipay’s "city service" response speed and fluency are better than WeChat’s. However, Yin Ting, the person in charge of the WeChat project in Shanghai, told the IT Times reporter that "the technology is gradually improving some functions of WeChat city service, such as applying the voice recognition bill number technology of PayPal to the living payment of’ city service’".

Offline competition: whoever builds the platform first wins in the end.

The government is open-minded and the two companies are fighting for speed.

"After accessing the two platforms, it has indeed achieved a good diversion effect, especially in the registration and appointment. In the past, a lot of time was wasted in queuing and receiving the form. Now some information can be completed directly on the mobile phone, and the appointment also makes us better. Arrange resources and be more efficient. If you apply for entry and exit, the queue time is now within 10 minutes. " Wang Jiwei, the head of Weibo and WeChat, told the IT Times reporter.

At present, Shanghai Public Security has connected some service functions of entry-exit management and traffic information to WeChat, and indirectly connected to Alipay’s platform through the "city service" platform paid by Sina Weibo. In a month or so, they have seen the positive effects.

Openness is the unanimous attitude of most functional departments that open electronic interfaces at present. In their view, as long as the interface is opened to WeChat within the allowable scope, there is no reason not to open it to Alipay, Weibo or Baidu, which is convenient for the public and improves the efficiency of the government, killing two birds with one stone, so under the premise of ensuring security, they do not rule out open cooperation with a number of similar Internet platforms. "The public security department has its own security mechanism and will open the corresponding interface only under the premise of ensuring security." Wang Jiwei said.

The government’s attitude is open, and the remaining problem is speed for Alipay and WeChat. Yin Ting told the IT Times reporter, "Many projects are being promoted in coordination with various commissions, but because the government needs time to divide manpower and funds, it is impossible to promote them too quickly. At present, some problems are being solved and services are gradually improving. " Ant Financial said that in addition to actively cooperating with government departments, they also set up a special team to discuss cooperation with major hospitals and other institutions. (The authors of this article, Zhang Weiwei and Zhang Cheng, were authorized by the IT Times to launch the titanium media network)