WeChat users in China woke up this morning to find a Starbucks had been opened up inside the app.
The hugely popular messaging app and social network – with 846 million active users, mainly in China – now allows people to gift a coffee to their buddies from within the ‘wallet’ section of WeChat.
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Inside WeChat’s Starbucks store there are two options: gift a specific drink or buy your friend a Starbucks gift card.
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The gifting option comes with a choice of six drinks and six designs for the accompanying e-card. The cheapest are the US$4.50 latte or cappuccino.
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The gift cards range from US$7.20 to US$72. They can be used at any Starbucks across mainland China.
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Payment is done using WeChat Wallet, which is baked into the messaging app. And then you choose a friend to message the gift to.
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WeChat can also be used inside Starbucks’ China stores for cashless payments. Apple Pay is accepted too.
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Starbucks has about 2,300 stores across mainland China. The chain plans to more than double that to 5,000 by 2021. It has 12,900 across the US.
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Photo credit: Connie Ma.
Converted from Chinese yuan. Rate: US$1 = 6.87.
This post Starbucks gets big China boost as WeChat adds gifting feature appeared first on Tech in Asia.