Product Teardown of Walmart China’s Wechat mini-program

Walmart China can be seen as one of the more successful localisation initiatives a US company has launched in China, with their Scan and Go product being the fastest mini-program to organically hit 10 million users, and driving more than 40% of their physical retail transactions.

In this product teardown, we look at their online shopping mini-program.

Upon launching the mini-program, the user is greeted with a number of permission requests for accessing name, profile pic, region and gender from the user’s Wechat profile. (reasonable for now)

Upon entering the app, the new user is greeted with a bright orange pop-up offering tiered discounts with spending amounts. As a user activation strategy this might be a good move in incentivising the user to take action in making their first purchase.

Clicking into the pop-up, however, throws up another authentication request for registering the user’s phone number. This is a break in the user flow when new users keen to act on making use of the discount to make their first purchase.

Before we move on, it might also be worth considering what is the ‘aha’ moment (or moments) the user should experience on this app. “Aha” moments are an emotional reaction to discovery of a key value proposition the app delivers. Once that is identified, we want to ensure that the user gets to the first ‘aha’ moment in as little steps as possible from the moment the app is opened (before the user drops off).

What could be possible ‘aha’ moments on Walmart China’s mini-program? Could it be:

• Seeing an attractive discount on specific products
• The discovery of the first appealing product to the user, which the user never knew about
• Seeing product information which is useful and previously unknown
• The first satisfactory purchase (probably the 1st major aha moment) — for various possible reasons including price competitiveness, quality of product upon delivery etc.

While it is hard to determine which of the above are real ‘aha’ moments for users without conducting user research and domain expertise, we can keep the above hypotheses in mind as we go through the rest of the app.

The carousel banner at the top of the main page advertises a summer discount on snacks, with prices starting from RMB2.5. There is a slight cognitive dissonance between the graphic showcasing beer, and the text referring to a discount on snacks. While a price of RMB2.5 might seem attractive for snacks, a general ad for discounts on an entire category of goods sold on the platform, it might not be the most optimal in getting me to my first ‘aha’ moment.

The bottom banner featuring shopping lists for making meals below RMB10, however, seemed strategically placed to pique a first-time user’s interest. This is especially so for a new user on whom the platform has limited data to make any personalised recommendations — everyone has to eat, and if there is market research to prove a trend towards a growing preference for affordable home-cooked meals (perhaps due to greater health-consciousness) in a sizeable segment of the demographic, then this is a worthwhile bet.

Clicking into the categories section of the mini-program, I am overwhelmed by the number of options presented to me. Diary products and pastries are presented to me as a default, and I can see no reason which justifies that.

I was pleasantly surprised, however, when I clicked into the product page.

While the top part of the page is no different from what you’d see on any other platform, scrolling down gives you a graphic from the merchant introducing the product, making it appealing far more than the bland photo at the top of the page.

This however, isn’t consistently available for all products. For products in the fresh food section, I was greeted with this standard official introduction to Walmart’s fresh food offering instead.

I would have been more impressed if product-specific information was shown here, for example an introduction to the region the fish was farmed in and the farming methods, to make the product more appealing to the purchaser.

Have any thoughts, comments or suggestions on how Walmart China’s app can be improved? Feel free to comment below, or join our Wechat group by scanning the QR code below.