Setting up a verified WeChat Overseas Official Account

If you don’t have a business licence in China, you are advised to open an overseas official account.

It is possible to open a domestic account via a locally registered business (the so-called “third-party account”). Essentially, they will use their licence to register for you. The account can be in your brand name, but you won’t be the account owner.

The key difference between the domestic third-party account and the overseas WeChat account is that a foreign company will own the account outright if it opens an overseas account, which will help protect your brand and avoid future conflict.

The functions of the two accounts are very similar, although some non-essential functions have not been activated for overseas accounts, such as a tailored welcome message.

*Currently, the only type of official WeChat account for a foreign business not having a Chinese business licence is the Service Account.

• Scan copy of the registered incorporation certificate
• Company registered address
• Company office address
• Company bank account details (Bank name, Bank account name, Bank account number for the international transaction). The bank account name must match the company name.
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The full list will be provided upon your purchase of the service.         

The Subscription account enables you to post more frequently (daily), while the Service account only allows you to post four times a month. However, notifications for any updates on Service accounts will appear directly in a user’s conversation log, while the posts from a Subscription account are limited in a subscription folder without any visible notifications on WeChat’s main operation panel.

Furthermore, many of WeChat’s unique features, such as CRM and custom menus, are only available to Service accounts.

In general, if your product offering is content-centred (e.g. media, key opinion leaders (KOLs), newspapers and magazines etc.), you should go for the Subscription account. In other cases, especially when you run an e-commerce business, we would suggest that you go for a Service account.

Crayfish.io would recommend that you verify your WeChat account because only verified accounts can have access to more advanced WeChat platform features such as WeChat pay, mini-programmes, user geo-location, surveys and more. Verifying your WeChat Official Account also allows your followers to trust that they are dealing with a genuine company.