Looking to sell in China market with your Shopify site?

Word on the street is that Shopify is not a good option for setting up your online store in China. Here's what one of Shopify's support team had to say about entering China:

But the alternative is that you'd have to use on of the Chinese ecommerce platforms like Youzan or Youhaosuda, which requires you to deal with a Chinese admin panel and leaves you with two ecommerce sites to manage.

Fortunately, there is a way around this mess!

Related: How to turn your ecommerce website into a WeChat store

Contents

In this post, we'll show how you can use your Shopify site to sell to Chinese consumers. We'll talk about:

• Payment gateways
• Website access from China
• Localization
• Social login
• Social media

Payment gateways

There are several payment gateways options that could work with Shopify in China:

If you're selling through a website, your Shopify store should support WeChat and Alipay, which are the most common payment methods in China.

If you are also planning to sell through a WeChat store, your theme developer has to modify your checkout page such that the Alipay payment option is hidden for your WeChat store as only WeChat Pay is allowed on a WeChat store.

Website access from China

Next, you'll have to allow customers to bypass the great firewall to get access to your Shopify site in China. There are several apps that can help you do this:

• China Speed Up
• China Speed

Localization

Your Shopify site has to support both English and Simplified Chinese. If you are on the Basic, Standard or Advanced plans, you can use Langify to do this. If you are on Shopify Plus, your Chinese site will be a separate instance of Shopify.

Social login

In China, consumers are used to logging in via their mobile phone or WeChat or Weibo SSO (Single Sign On). It would be a good idea to enable WeChat social login for registration and that will tie in well if you're planning to launch a WeChat store.

Social media

Last but not least, don't forget to modify your theme so that your social media links are localized.

Conclusion

That's a wrap! Hope this gives you an idea on how you can sell into China with a Shopify store. Feel free to reach out to us if you have further questions or if you'd like us to help you with your Shopify store.