Symbolic interaction: Customer, Lifestyle and Store APP embedded in WeChat

E-commerce has been rapidly thriving into massive B2C and B2B electronic platforms in China recently, like Taobao and Jingdong. This article is to explore the current trend Chinese entrepreneurs attempt to open up a sort of mobile e- commerce based on the concept of the industry chain. This new type of mobile e-commerce is essentially introduced by a new style of the virtual store, embedded in WeChat, called `applets'. It is important to note that WeChat, as the largest Chinese social media with advanced IT infrastructure, has new media's symbolic power to centralize most sources of the social and technology and to integrate most potential customers for its industry partners. My argument is, based on this power, WeChat acts as the specific symbolic form to exercise all possible business models created by its applets. Accordingly, the Chinese entrepreneurs are seeking for greater opportunities to combine B2C and B2B to develop a new integrative business model ushering in a new commercial age.