How to accept Alipay and WeChat Pay on your WordPress website

In Western countries, we tend to forget about how the rest of world functions, so we focus on optimizing for our markets. It’s understandable, and actually quite normal, as our country usually is our primary source of business. In the case of online businesses, this can extend to all regions that speak our website’s language, but maybe we should look a bit further.

If you are going to look further, why not go all the way and try to sell to Chinese people? Obviously, selling in China is quite complicated, as you need to understand the market and speak the language. However, there are a lot of Chinese tourists that may come to your country and could be interested in your services or products. To welcome them properly, it would be nice to have a few Chinese translation, but accepting their preferred modes of payments may be even more useful.

What are Alipay and We Chat Pay?

Alipay is a digital wallet and payment app that facilitates easy money transfers without the need for cash. As a superapp, it offers numerous features beyond payments, such as hailing taxis, applying for credit cards, and purchasing insurance. Developed and operated by Ant Group, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, Alipay serves as a comprehensive third-party mobile and online payment platform.

WeChat Pay is an integrated payment feature within the WeChat app, enabling users to swiftly complete transactions using their smartphones. It supports various payment methods, including Quick Pay, QR Code Payments, In-App Web-Based Payments, and Native In-App Payments, catering to diverse payment scenarios. As a digital wallet service, WeChat Pay allows users to make mobile payments and transfer money between contacts. It offers six different payment products: Quick Payment, QR Code Payment, Mini Program Payment, Official Account Payment, In-App Payment, and Web Payment.

How to accept Alipay and WeChat Pay with WordPress?

Let’s see how to accept Alipay and WeChat Pay on your WordPress website. The good news is that you will not need to create many accounts for this, you may actually already be able to do it with a few clicks depending on your current e-commerce setup.

1. Get a Stripe account

If you don’t have one already, get a Stripe account to handle payments. Stripe is known for handling credit card payments, but it also allows for receiving payments from many other payment providers, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, bank wire (with automatic payment handling), or… AliPay and WeChat Pay.

You could also work with some payment providers, such as Chinese services, but Stripe is undeniably the easiest to setup with WordPress.

2. Install one of the following Stripe payment plugin for WordPress

To receive payments with Stripe, there are many options that you can use depending on your setup, here are a few you could choose from:

  • China Payments Plugin: the most comprehensive WordPress plugin for accepting AliPay and WeChat Pay. Comes with many integrations, such as popular e-commerce and LMS plugins. It has a Pro version, but the free version should be good enough for most websites.
  • Stripe Payment Plugin for WooCommerce: the perfect fit if you already work with WooCommerce for your e-commerce WordPress website. The base version is free, but you will need to get the paid version for more advanced features, such as support for subscriptions.
  • WP Simple Pay: probably the best option if you are not using a full e-commerce plugin, because it’s the lightest one with an easy setup and good level of customization. The free version integrates with AffiliateWP and the most popular website builders, but you will need the pro version for the coolest drag-and-drop form building options.
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