2C2P offers social commerce payment
2C2P Thailand Co Ltd, a payment service provider, has introduced the world’s first social commerce payment for Facebook to capitalise on the growth of conversational commerce.
The company has partnered with Facebook for more than a year in developing the payment system that integrates Facebook’s Messenger app, said Piyachart Ratanaprasartpon, chief executive of 2C2P.
Dubbed Qwik, the new payment service will enable online merchants with Facebook pages to receive payment from buyers via Facebook Messenger.
Online merchants need to go to the Settings menu, then click the Payment menu and create a payment account with 2C2P. It will link the bank accounts of the merchants and 2C2P will transfer money every two weeks to merchants.
Merchants can fill in the details of products, price, and delivery fee in the invoice and then click Send Order to online buyers.
Online buyers can click Request Payment on their Messenger. Every payment transaction will have a one-time password to secure the transactions.
Online merchants need to pay a fee of 2.75% of the payment amount, lower than rivals that charge over 3%.
Currently Qwik accepts debit and credit card payment and it expects to be able to accept PromptPay in the future.
The new service will enable online merchants to track payments easier and shoppers should feel more confident because they have a payment record.
Mr Piyachart said Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are four of the 10 countries with the largest number of Facebook users. They also allow Facebook pages for merchants.
Thailand has 48 million Facebook users and around 300,000 Facebook pages for online shops.
“Thailand was chosen as the only country in which to start the social commerce payment platform,” he said.
Mr Piyachart said Qwik had a pilot programme last year, testing with some 50 merchants before the formal commercial launch on Aug 15 this year.
“Now we have 20,000 Facebook pages who are Qwik customers, and we aim to have 100,000 merchants using Qwik,” he said.
Online purchases via the conversational commerce platform average 1,500 to 1,800 baht, with fashion, beauty and electronics the best-selling items.
Facebook will run a short campaign to promote this new payment platform by subsidising transaction fees for three months until Nov 15.
“Facebook would like to encourage merchants to use its platform and promote their Facebook pages,” Mr Piyachart said.
Facebook earns revenue from digital advertising while 2C2P earns revenue from payment transaction fees.
The Qwik service also enables 2C2P to expand to the small and medium-sized enterprise market.
The company aims to double revenue in 2017 from US$11 million (363.5 million baht) last year. 2C2P operates in 10 countries in Southeast Asia, with Thailand accounting for 60% of total revenue.
Social commerce is expected to gain momentum because of the high usage of social networks in addition to small merchants needing to have their own space to sell products.