Shopify has partnered with major Chinese digital wallet platform Alipay to expand its payment options for merchants based in the United States.
The new partnership is aimed to allow Shopify merchants to accept payments through Alipay from its more than one billion annual active users in China. The hope is to eventually expand this partnership in other Asian countries.
“Reaching consumers across Asia is an enormous growth opportunity for our merchants.”
Previously, Shopify merchants were able to offer Alipay as a payment method through third-party providers. Through this new partnership, Shopify said its merchants can make payments simpler for a broader pool of consumers. Alipay is the latest of a flurry of partnerships Shopify has inked with tech giants this year in order to bolster merchants’ e-commerce capabilities.
Last month, Shopify partnered with TikTok to make it easier for merchants to advertise and sell products on the video-sharing social media site. The Canadian e-commerce company also began working on an integration with YouTube. Earlier this year, Shopify also launched Facebook Shops, a free tool aimed to help merchants create customized online storefronts for Facebook and Instagram.
“Reaching consumers across Asia is an enormous growth opportunity for our merchants, and Alipay has brought inclusive financial services to more than one billion people in China,” said Kaz Nejatian, Shopify’s newly named VP of merchant services.
“Through today’s partnership, we’ll help our merchants provide the best possible shopping experiences for this new audience of cross-border consumers,” Nejatian said of the Alipay deal.
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Shopify also pointed to the new opportunity for merchants to tap into major shopping seasons and holidays. In China, the 11.11 Global Festival, popularly known as Singles Day or Double 11, has become the largest physical retail and online shopping day in the world.
According to Alibaba, this year’s Singles Day event generated gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $74 billion. Businesses in the United States earned more than $5.4 billion in sales from Chinese consumers.
Shopify hopes to add more markets in the future as part of this partnership, including Hong Kong, India, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Last month Alipay’s parent company, Ant Group, sought to go public through a $34.4 billion initial public offering (IPO), which would make it the largest IPO ever. However, it appears those plans were squandered in part by the Chinese government, which halted the IPO over reported concerns of CEO Jack Ma’s influence in the nation.
Shopify, which is publicly-traded on the TSX, has experienced a year of growth. According to its third-quarter financial results, the company beat analysts’ predictions by a wide margin as the Canadian e-commerce company more than doubled GMV and saw its largest quarterly profit yet.
Image source Unsplash. Photo by Roberto Cortese.