Today we're adding support for China UnionPay in the UK and the European Union, making it even easier for global businesses to sell to Chinese buyers. With this launch, Stripe users in North America, Europe, and most of Asia can now support the top three ways Chinese buyers want to pay: UnionPay, Alipay, and WeChat Pay, which collectively account for 85% of online purchases by Chinese consumers.

The cross-border ecommerce opportunity in China is large and growing rapidly. In 2020 alone, Chinese consumers spent nearly $100 billion on ecommerce products and services from outside China, up 31 percent year-on-year.

The Chinese buyer market also extends to the global Chinese diaspora living, working, and studying outside China—representing more than 60 million people. EASI, an Asian food delivery platform from Australia, was able to quickly expand its reach to more Chinese customers in Japan, Canada, the UK, and the US by adding Alipay and WeChat Pay to its Stripe integration.

UnionPay—and its global network, UnionPay International—is the world’s largest card network, with nearly 9 billion cards in circulation. When added to the more than 2 billion wallet users combined across Alipay and WeChat Pay, businesses now have a fast, easy way to engage the majority of the Chinese ecommerce market with the payment methods these consumers find most familiar. 

An analysis of hundreds of Stripe’s users around the world shows that just by adding Alipay and WeChat Pay, many have seen their revenues from Chinese buyers double. 

Humble Bundle—a marketplace for games and digital content—grew its sales from China by over 600%, in part by adding preferred Chinese payment methods to its checkout page. With more businesses relying on platforms and marketplaces for global growth, offering Chinese payment methods is a smart way to win and retain users.

Businesses looking to reach more Chinese consumers can now do so simply by updating a single line of code in Stripe Checkout, or just a few lines of code in other Stripe integrations. 

Learn about our payment methods and then visit your Dashboard to see the payment methods available for your business.