WeChat has opened a door

WeChat launched the "Group Gift Lottery" function during the 2025 Spring Festival. This innovative function not only brings a new way of social interaction to users, but is also regarded as an important breakthrough in WeChat's e-commerce ecosystem. By deeply integrating the gift-giving function with WeChat stores, WeChat has opened up a new traffic entrance for its own e-commerce, directly connecting social networking with e-commerce. This article will explore the strategic significance behind this new WeChat function, as well as its potential impact on WeChat's e-commerce ecosystem, and analyze whether WeChat can use this to achieve new growth in the e-commerce field.

After watering trading platforms such as JD.com, Meituan, and Pinduoduo, WeChat finally brought traffic to its own e-commerce.

On New Year's Eve, WeChat added a new feature called "Group Gift Lottery". On the first day of the new year, Ma Huateng promoted this new feature.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Ma Huateng distributed red envelopes to employees in the Tencent employee group. In addition to the regular WeChat red envelopes, there was also a "gift lottery" with gifts including skin care products.

When the gift-giving function on WeChat was first launched, it was implemented very cautiously. There was no obvious entrance in WeChat, and it could not be used in group chats.

But in the past ten days, WeChat gift sending has completed two key breakthroughs: first, it obtained the entrance to the chat page, and then the group chat scene was opened.

A few days ago, WeChat launched the "group gift" function, and gift sending was expanded to group chat scenarios. The gift sender sends a specified number of "WeChat blue envelopes" in the group chat. Group members who fill in the address first can grab the gifts first, similar to grabbing red envelopes in WeChat groups.

Simply put, group gift draws rely on luck, while group gift delivery relies on hand speed. A WeChat user who was tested on this feature told Zizibang, "Someone in the group delivered 10 gifts, and they were quickly snatched up."

Since WeChat red envelopes launched a surprise attack on Alipay in 2014, WeChat red envelope grabbing has a history of 11 years and has gradually degenerated into a daily payment product. Grabbing gifts is equivalent to a variant of grabbing red envelopes. The new gameplay may increase the freshness of social interaction. Of course, the threshold for giving gifts is higher.

The greater significance of opening the chat portal lies in its value to e-commerce.

Last August, the video store was upgraded to WeChat Store. At that time, WeChat e-commerce was still vague. Tencent President Martin Lau did give a direction: Tencent is repositioning its live e-commerce business internally. In the future, WeChat e-commerce will not only be limited to video accounts and live channels, but will be connected to the entire WeChat ecosystem.

The evolved WeChat store connects private chats and group chats. It does not simply adopt the method of sharing links, but perfectly integrates products into social interaction, directly connecting social and e-commerce into zero distance.

WeChat gift-giving has set the entrance in the group, which is equivalent to opening a random door for WeChat stores. In the past, WeChat opened the entrance for its allies Meituan, JD.com, and Pinduoduo in the nine-square grid of the secondary entrance. Even for its own mini-program e-commerce, you need to pull down to find it.

However, the entrance to sending gifts on WeChat is directly placed in WeChat group chat, the source of social interaction. By opening WeChat, you can jump to e-commerce in just one step.

Douyin already has a similar model. Douyin's traffic valve is in the content. Short videos and live broadcasts integrate products into the content field, achieving zero distance between content and e-commerce. Since then, the golden road of Douyin e-commerce has unfolded from under its feet.

WeChat controls both content and social communication. The abundant social traffic has given birth to Pinduoduo. Sending gifts on WeChat integrates the transaction behavior of gift-giving into the social scene, achieving zero distance between social and e-commerce. Goods can finally circulate naturally in WeChat's most important social scene.

In addition, WeChat has reconstructed a distribution logic for WeChat stores. By clicking "Select Gift" on the gift sending page, you can see that the platform has built a public domain recommendation system using social recommendations such as "gifted by friends".

The public domain traffic that merchants have been waiting for for a long time has finally arrived.

For WeChat, sending gifts is an action to attract new users. In the past few years, both the GMV of WeChat Mini Program e-commerce and the GMV of Video Store, the predecessor of WeChat Store, have grown very fast. However, it must be pointed out that this high growth is based on a low base. Compared with several leading e-commerce platforms, the scale of WeChat Store is still far behind, and many users have not yet completed their first e-commerce transaction on WeChat.

This relatively lightweight transaction may be able to complete the cold start that all e-commerce platforms need, and it has become an ice-breaking action for WeChat e-commerce.

If WeChat red envelopes opened a gap in WeChat payment, then WeChat blue envelopes are opening the door to WeChat e-commerce.

However, at present, there are relatively few SKUs suitable for gift delivery scenarios and many products have no price advantage. If Tencent wants to build its own "Pinduoduo", can its operational capabilities keep up, as it has always focused on products and neglected operations?

01

In mid-December last year, WeChat launched the gift-giving feature. Initially, this feature was quite low-key and was only tested internally for some users, with no obvious entrance in WeChat.

The outside world has always had high expectations for WeChat e-commerce. At the end of December, a document titled "Minutes of WeChat e-commerce exchange meeting on December 20, 2024" mentioned that the scale of WeChat's entire e-commerce (including video accounts, mini-programs, etc.) is expected to be 4 trillion to 5 trillion this year (2024). Before June 18 next year (2025), Tencent Group will wait and see whether the social e-commerce ecosystem can run and whether GMV can explode.

However, later, Zhang Jun, general manager of Tencent’s marketing and public relations department, posted a message on WeChat Moments denying that there was any commercial plan for sending gifts on WeChat, and said, "It's a rumor."

The outside world expects video account e-commerce and WeChat e-commerce to become the next Douyin: with abundant public domain traffic and more active business scenarios. However, the nature of its instant messaging product means that it must gradually release traffic in a limited manner.

In January this year, WeChat's several tight doors gradually opened: sending gifts gained two important entrances in WeChat: chat box and group chat. The latter is especially significant.

Compared with red envelopes, sending gifts is a relatively low-frequency and vertical scenario. Although it is still a social product, its space is much smaller than that of red envelopes.

Opening a group chat is equivalent to opening a new scenario for gift giving, and grabbing gifts in a group chat is given the same emotional value as grabbing red envelopes.

More importantly, WeChat’s own e-commerce has also had a “TikTok-style scene” in WeChat. TikTok’s traffic valve is in short video content, and its products were initially implanted in the content flow. Although WeChat has also built a video account as a content field, and the video account also has hundreds of millions of daily active users, it is not WeChat’s absolute dominant field.

Now, goods can finally circulate naturally in WeChat’s most important social venue.

"The impact of gift giving on businesses is not only that it increases sales, but also that gift giving based on social relationships helps businesses reduce promotion costs," a WeChat instructor mentioned at the WeChat Open Class Pro in early January.

If WeChat e-commerce merchants want to obtain traffic, they can either invest in public domains such as video accounts or spread in self-built private domains such as group chats. Now, merchants can promote their products through social fission.

The major change that WeChat gift-giving has brought to WeChat e-commerce is that it has opened up a public domain for merchants.

Whether in a private chat or group chat dialog box, users who want to send gifts must enter the "Select Gift" page. The products recommended on this page are social recommendations based on the social relationship chain "Given by friends", such as Luckin Coffee, Cha Yan Yue Se, etc.

Of course, the location of this public domain entrance is still relatively deep. After the public's curiosity about gift giving fades, the amount of traffic that merchants can obtain from this entrance is questionable.

02

In the e-commerce business, WeChat's actions are relatively slow, while competitors and brands are much more agile in tapping into WeChat traffic.

Meituan has previously launched a "Spring Festival Gift" section, where users can share their purchases of tea, cakes and other products on WeChat groups and invite group members to "try their luck" to grab coupons. Users who receive gift coupons can redeem corresponding meals at nearby merchants.

JD’s “Group Gifting” function is similar. Users can choose to purchase multiple gifts at a time and package them and send them to a WeChat group. Group members can try their luck to randomly grab different gifts.

Taobao's response speed is faster. In early January, Taobao launched the "gifting" function, which offers a 15% discount on the platform (equivalent to the cross-store discount for combined orders). After successfully placing an order, you can forward the link and password to your friends, and "WeChat" is given priority in the forwarding channel.

However, although WeChat has opened several doors to Taobao, unlike Meituan, JD.com and other gift-giving functions that can be directly shared to WeChat groups in the form of mini-programs, Taobao's gifts can only be shared in the form of links. If users want to receive gifts, they need to jump to the Taobao APP, and this route is not smooth.

"Using the gift-giving function, you can directly enjoy the platform discount without having to place a group order," said a user who used Taobao's gift-giving function. The traffic that Taobao can tap from WeChat is still limited. A few days after it went online, the position of Taobao's "gift-giving" function has quietly changed.

Merchants are even more eager to seize this wave of dividends. "With the endorsement of social media and the gift-giving scenario, the overall settlement rate is very high," the WeChat public class lecturer analyzed, "Merchants make money from every sale."

The first to arrive are brand owners. Guosheng Securities pointed out in a research report that companies with clear gift attributes and strong e-commerce operation capabilities are expected to achieve incremental performance.

Brands such as Luckin Coffee and Three Squirrels have launched products that match gift-giving scenarios. As of January 27, sales of Luckin Coffee’s customized “19.9 Set” exceeded 70,000.

Previously, Dongfang Zhenxuan announced that on January 20, the sales of Dongfang Zhenxuan’s WeChat store exceeded 1 million yuan, of which 80% was generated by the gift-giving function. However, compared with its interim performance of half-year GMV reaching 4.8 billion yuan, the role of WeChat gift-giving in Dongfang Zhenxuan is quite limited.

Some small businesses are also trying to get a piece of the action. One user posted that after placing an order through the WeChat gift-giving portal, he received a text message from a Pinduoduo merchant, indicating that the product was ordered from Pinduoduo and the price was more than twice as expensive as Pinduoduo.

Many platform-level companies have entered the gift-giving market, but the main battlefield for merchants to give gifts is still WeChat stores. After all, this is a social game, and even other platforms have to rely on WeChat to complete this function.

In other words, other platforms quickly launched gift-giving services simply to follow the strategies of their competitors, or to try to dig more traffic from the WeChat pool. But for WeChat, it was an activity to attract new users for WeChat e-commerce.

03

At present, gift giving is still a semi-finished product and just the prelude of the slowly unfolding WeChat social e-commerce, but it may complete the "first e-commerce order" for some people in the WeChat ecosystem.

A Douyin e-commerce advertising salesperson once told Alphabet List that before the large-scale live-streaming marketing activities such as Luo Yonghao in 2020, one of the factors affecting the conversion efficiency of Douyin Stores was that users already had delivery address records on mature e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com, and if they were shopping at Douyin Stores for the first time, they often needed to fill in a new address. However, in many large-scale live-streaming marketing activities that were linked to Douyin Stores, the links to Douyin Stores were basically posted in the live broadcast rooms. "Many users completed their first shopping on Douyin Stores, and also solved the problem of the delivery address of Douyin Stores."

Sending gifts on WeChat can be said to be a new customer acquisition method for WeChat e-commerce, or an ice-breaking action.

According to data given by the WeChat Open Class lecturer, in the past year, the GMV scale of WeChat stores was 1.92 times that of 2023, and the number of orders was 2.25 times. LatePost previously reported that the GMV of video account e-commerce in 2023 was around 100 billion yuan.

It is not difficult to see that there is still a considerable gap between the GMV of tens of thousands between WeChat stores and the leading e-commerce companies. If WeChat wants to achieve a higher GMV, it is obvious that it must complete the first shot of users placing orders on WeChat.

Can WeChat open up e-commerce by sending gifts? The research report gives an optimistic expectation to WeChat sending gifts.

CITIC Securities pointed out in a research report that the "Send Gifts" function of WeChat Stores is expected to achieve a market share of hundreds of billions in the gift-giving scenario alone, and the total scale of social e-commerce it drives is expected to reach one trillion by 2027.

But judging from its current functions, sending gifts on WeChat has created a new business form, but it is not enough to be called a business phenomenon.

Compared with grabbing red envelopes, the threshold for both sending and grabbing gifts is much higher. After the popularity fades, it is still unknown whether users will still be willing to try this social behavior. After all, compared with traditional e-commerce platforms, the SKUs of WeChat stores are not rich enough, the prices are not absolutely competitive, and a little social premium is added.

The Alphabet List found on the "Send Gifts" page that a gift box of 6 cans of 180g of Sanpangdan melon seeds costs 107.42 yuan on Taobao, while the price on WeChat is 139.9 yuan.

In the gift-giving scenario, although the return rate is lower, it is still a "one-time deal". What the platform and merchants need to do is to provide these new users with richer product palettes to complete repeat purchases of goods.

In addition, the fact that social attributes outweigh practicality also means that there are limited products suitable for gift-giving. Currently, the products recommended on the "Send Gifts" page are mostly small items such as tea and snacks, lacking high-priced categories. If you want to expand from small gifts to more consumption scenarios, you need to wait for WeChat to make a second iteration on the recommendation system.

Judging from Tencent’s statement, it still continues the previous rhythm of slow iteration. “I hope the outside world will not over-hype this function,” Ma Huateng said at the Tencent Group’s annual meeting in mid-January, saying that WeChat will take five years or even longer to become an e-commerce ecosystem connector and exert the power of social networking.

Video account e-commerce has been online for many years, but objectively speaking, it has not met merchants' expectations of becoming the "next Douyin". The outside world has always hoped that WeChat can take bigger and bigger steps.

Perhaps, looking back a few years later, WeChat Stores that run through the WeChat ecosystem will be this big step.

Written by: Tan Xiaohan Edited by: Wang Jing