Chinese consumers have never taken to debit or credit cards, always preferring to pay by cash…

This was until Alibaba (with Alipay) and Tencent (through WeChat) launched mobile based payment solutions.

With close to a billion smart phone users, mobile payments have exploded and is easily the No1 preferred and trusted payment vehicle, quickly overtaking cash.

So, why did Chinese consumers jump right over card payment technology?

It seems to be about convenience and trust.

WeChat pay and Alipay let customers scan a QR code and immediately transfer money from their digital wallet to a vendor.

As for businesses, the QR code is much cheaper to get than a credit card reader like Square, making mobile payments easier for them as well.

Even buskers stick a QR code on their sign so people can tip, taxi drivers take smartphone payments, and food stalls and grocery stores are all going cash-and-card-free.

There’s a story of 2 brothers who travelled to their nearest large town in China to rob 4 large convenience stores of their cash, before skipping town.

Armed with knives they went quickly from one store to the next, only to find that each store had next to no cash in their tills, in total they stole about £100.

They got picked up soon after by the local police, and during their court hearing asked the judge: ‘Why is there no cash left in China”.

What’s the moral of this story?

Could you make it more convenient for your customers to do business with you (rather than your competitors), so they jump right past competitors and come to you instead?

With office technology, we wrap everything up in one fixed monthly fee, which is guaranteed never to increase and comes with lifetime warranty, which provides certainty and peace of mind.

…what can you change to jump over the top of the competition?