Walmart suspected of harming consumers’ rights by stopping Alipay service

Walmart is suspected of harming consumers’ rights and interests by recently stopping Alipay services in some of its stores in western China, Beijing Youth Daily reported on March 26.

Some of Walmart’s stores in southwestern China, including Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing recently announced Alipay is no longer available in its stores and instead WeChat Pay only.

Walmart explained it is only a business decision. Insiders noted that it is normal for enterprises to choose one side to stand on between the two e-wallet giants Alipay and WeChat Pay as they contend for China’s domestic mobile payment market.

Apart from Walmart, shared bike and car-hailing platforms are also targets of competition for the two giants.

Walmart, with more than 90 stores in southwestern China, has reached cooperation with WeChat starting March 15 for the purpose of rolling out special offers and precision marketing based on big data analysis.

WeChat stated its respect for Walmart’s market decision, and promised to offer its partners digital services while collecting no data or business privacy from them.

However, experts say Walmart’s behavior is suspected of harming a fair deal as well as consumers’ rights and interests.

The behavior targeting Alipay is suspected of being an act of monopoly and that they are involved in instances of unfair competition practice as Walmart restricts Alipay services making use of its certain monopoly position, said Pan Helin, chief economist of China Non-performing Assets Alliance.

Pan added that Walmart also harms consumers’ rights of independent choice and fair trade.