eurotrade Flughafen Munchen Handels-GmbH will gain access to over 600 million active WeChat Pay users. Sales figures back up the trend of offering payment methods for Chinese tourists.
MUNICH – Wirecard, the international technology company, is expanding its collaboration with Eurotrade Flughafen Munchen Handels-GmbH, a subsidiary of Flughafen Munchen GmbH, in point-of-sale (POS) payment processing in order to offer WeChat Pay at the Munich airport. As a wholly owned retail subsidiary of Flughafen Munchen GmbH, eurotrade operates some 70 shops at Munich's airport. The premium brand portfolio is also targeted towards Chinese customers. This target group is increasingly gaining in importance. To cater to their needs, eurotrade will now become the first supplier in Germany to accept WeChat Pay after successfully integrating Alipay into its till systems in July 2016.
WeChat Pay has over 600 million active users per month and is part of the Chinese company Tencent, which ranks among the top five internet companies worldwide. WeChat Pay has a market share of almost 40% in terms of payment volume and around 53% for mobile payment transactions in China. With the launch of WeChat Pay, eurotrade Flughafen Munchen Handels-GmbH will appeal to a wide target group.
More than two million Chinese tourists travel to Germany annually and shop for renowned luxury brands. In 2015 alone, Chinese tourists spent USD 292 billion in foreign countries. The eurotrade Flughafen Munchen Handels-GmbH can confirm that most of this spending is for shopping. The company has already seen positive results after introducing Alipay: In the first three months since the launch of the new payment method, the average amount spent by Chinese tourists in eurotrade stores has increased by 92%. Furthermore, since then visitors from China have spent around 280% more than average consumers in duty free shops.
Sven Zahn, Managing Director of eurotrade Flughafen Munchen Handels-GmbH: "It was pretty easy to make the decision to also offer WeChat Pay as a new payment method because of the excellent results we've seen with Alipay. In addition Chinese visitors plan their trips to Europe, including shopping lists, far in advance. This is why it is important for us to also use the marketing platforms that mobile payment apps offer us. Following Alipay, the adoption of WeChat Pay highlight our commitment to offering a holistic payment service for international visitors in general and for Chinese visitors more specifically."
Christian Reindl, Executive Vice President Sales Consumer Goods at Wirecard, adds: "As the first WeChat Pay partner for POS acceptance in Europe, we are proud to be expanding our collaboration with eurotrade Flughafen Munchen Handels-GmbH. Thanks to our flexible payment platform, we have been able to achieve this quickly and easily."
Chinese visitors who want to make mobile cashless payments with WeChat Pay need to follow three simple steps: The user opens the WeChat or Weixin app and selects the item from the wallet feature. This creates a QR code. The retailer scans this code to initiate the payment process. Meanwhile, Wirecard assumes payment acceptance and handles all processing.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
