Most foreign businesses are aware of Taobao, TMall, JD, and maybe even Weidian, but very few have heard of another great eCommerce platform called Youzan.
Like Weidian(微店), Youzan is not really an eCommerce website, but rather an eCommerce platform much like Shopify in the west. You as a user can register a Youzan account, set up a shop, and start selling your products and services. One key difference however is, while Shopify is more or less designed for the web, Youzan, like Weidian is designed for mobile. You can easily link your Youzan store with your WeChat official Account (now you call it a WeChat Store) and promote your products on WeChat, Weibo, and other Chinese social media.
Today, we’re going to give you an in-depth look at how you can set up your own Youzan and start selling your product through WeChat.
Step #1: Create an Account
To create a Youzan account, first, go to youzan.com. On the Youzan’s homepage look for a blue button on the top right corner, click it and it will take you to the registration page.
Note: Youzan ’ll require you to present your passport, so be prepared.
At the registration page enter your phone number and wait for the verification code to be sent to you. Once you’ve received your verification code, enter the code along with your desired password and click the big blue button to confirm your Youzan account creation.
Congratulation you now have a new Youzan account
Step #2: Select Your Store Type
With your new Youzan account, you’ll now be taken to another page as follows. In this page you have to choose a store type from four different store types:
Youzan Micro Mall
Out of the 4 type of Youzan store types, Youzan Micro Mall is the most popular one. Since Youzan allows store owners to sell both products online and supports purchasing products from offline physical stores. Youzan Micro Mall, however, is designed strictly for eCommerce businesses who do not have an offline presence. If you already have your supplies sourced and want to start selling right away online only, then we recommend you choose Youzan Micro Mall.
Youzan Retail Store
The second type of Youzan store allows customers to place an order online but pick up their items in a physical store near them. It is very similar to “grab and go” service that Walmart provides. This store type helps provides a unique shopping experience for your customer by helping them save time. If you own an offline retail store such as fruit shop, supermarket, snack bar, or clothing shop then Youzan Retail Store is great option for you.
Youzan Beauty Industry
Youzan Beauty Industry is designed for the business that offers manicure, pedicure, hairdressing, medical cosmetics, gym and so on. If you run an offline beauty shop and want to grow your business, then Youzan Beauty Industry might just be the right store type for you. This type of store allows you to benefit from various network promotions such as VIP cards, discounts, and even online booking.
Youzan Catering
The last type of Youzan store is Youzan Catering. It is designed to provide restaurants, dessert shops, and catering business to be able to start their very own online take-out business. Through Youzan catering, a Restaurant owner can set up their shop on Youzan, and their customers are able to purchase their meal online. There are also many promotion tools like discount coupons, Groupon coupons, and vouchers. Youzan Catering is a great option for food and beverage industry stores such as milk tea shops and restaurants.
Step 3: Open Your Store
Now that you have a good understanding of all 4 types of Youzan stores. It is time to make that decision and select the most appropriate store and fill out all the required information of your store. For the purpose of this article, we’re going to use Youzan Retail Store as an example.
Once you’ve selected a store type and click the button marked “Open a Store”, you’ll be taken to a page to fill in your store details. On this page, you’ll have to choose a great name for your store and in the details of your physical store address if required. After you’ve filled out all the required information for your store, go ahead and click the blue button at the bottom and you’re done!
Step 4: Manage Your Store
Congratulation! Your Youzan store is finally all set up. To access the Dashboard of your Youzan store for management, click on the button just below your store’s QR titled “Enter the Store Dashboard”.
Once you’re at the Dashboard of your new Youzan store the next step will be to list all the new products you will want to sell. Let’s take Youzan Micro Mall as an example.
On the homepage of your Dashboard, you’ll see some buttons in the left column, such as Store, Items, Orders, Customers.
Once you’ve decided to add a new item, click the Items button and you will be taken to the item creation page. To add a new item to your store, simply click the green button near the top left side of the screen and follow the instructions below. (Note: To list special items like food and wine you’ll be required to provide Food Circulation License, while it’s not necessary for other items.)
Step 1: Choose an appropriate category for your product.
Step 2: Enter some basic information such as product name, inventory, logistics. (You can also make a short video for your item, which can be watched on WeChat or Weibo.)
Step3: Edit the details of your product. This will help to demonstrate the features and benefits of your product to your customers. To add pictures simply click the details area.
Below is a case study of Women’s shoes. As you can see, the left half of the editing panel shows you what will be presented to the customer while you are editing. You can also add a brief introduction and it will be the first thing shown when this product is shared on WeChat or Weibo, so keep the introduction brief and easy to understand.
After editing the text and adding some pictures, click the launch button below and your new product will now be available to be purchased on your Youzan Micro Mall.
Special Functions
At this point, you may see many squares under the product details area. Clicking each square will allow you to add some special content and function like similar product’s link, image Ads., rich text, etc… This feature will allow you to enhance your products for better conversion or upsells. Let’s take a closer look.
Product Square
With this square, you can add other relevant items that are selling on your Youzan store. By adding related items to your product, it can dramatically increase the sales of your store because other items will also be shown when the customers browse this product.
Image Ads Square
It is a good idea to have some images or your other products handy before you use this square. You can use this square to add multiple images of other products and link them to that specific product. When a customer clicks on these images, there will be that item’s purchase page. This feature is similar to the item square mentioned above.
Rich Text Square
The rich text square allows you to describe your item more specifically. In the GIF image above, the size description of women’s shoes is presented. As you can see, there are editing functions such as change the font size and you even add emojis make your text more fun.
After all the processes above, your product is now fully loaded to bring you some real sale. It can now be found by your customer to be purchased.
How to Manage Your Products
Sometime you may want to view the item you’ve just added to your Youzan store. To do this, simply click the Product Management button to see a listed of products you’ve added to your store.
To view any particular product, simply click on the product you want to review and it will lead you to the product page as follow, which is the same page your customers will also see.
All the information you’ve provided before can be clearly visible on the product details page. One really cool feature is that your customers could also scan the QR code on the right to directly place an order of the product.
As you can see, to register an account in Youzan and launch your products is easy. In addition, you can download the Youzan App in App Store. It will be easier for you to manage your store on your smartphone and on the go as well.
