The annual Chinese ‘Golden Week’ holiday has provided British High Street retailers with a sales boost as transactions with Chinese payment methods increased by 30 per cent.

This is according to figures from payment platform Adyen, which analysed its own network transactions in the UK completed with Chinese payment cards or payment methods across the period of 1-7 October.

It also found that a quarter of all transactions from Chinese shoppers in the UK during Golden Week were completed using QR code-based digital wallets such as Alipay or WeChat Pay. This represents a 25 per cent increase from normal levels in the UK.

Myles Dawson, UK managing director at Adyen, said the importance of offering relevant local payment options to customers from home and abroad cannot be overstated.

“We know that European retailers are losing more than £400 million in sales each year by not offering customers their preferred payment methods – if you factor in international tourists, the opportunity lost is even greater.”

He suggested that offering QR code-based digital wallets such as Alipay and WeChat Pay is important to appeal to Chinese tourists. “It provides them with a more familiar and frictionless payments experience, as well as enabling them to get a much better exchange rate and means they don’t have to carry lots of cash around with them.

“The key for retailers is finding the right technology partner that can provide an integrated solution on a single terminal device,” concluded Dawson. “This will give the retailer confidence that as the shopper behaviour changes their single terminal can already cope with that change.”

Last week, Global Payments announced a partnership in the UK with Alipay, enabling merchants to provide a seamless shopping experience to the Chinese tourist market.

Nearly 350,000 Chinese nationals visited the UK in 2017, spending almost £700 million, with mobile payments being the most popular form of payment.

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