Beyond the large platforms, the biggest group building mini programs is small and medium business — and that group will only grow. China has roughly 30 million SMEs, and a good share of them will end up with a mini program of their own.
For an SME the format is an opportunity more than a trend. Capital is limited, and the cost of getting an app wrong is high: build it, watch nobody install it, and the money is gone. A mini program costs far less to build, so the entry price is low enough that trying is survivable.
The claim that SMEs will account for 80% of mini programs is not an exaggeration at this point. Given how the format has developed and what it does for a business, it becoming standard equipment is the likeliest outcome.
What SMEs actually ask for
Requirements differ by industry and by business, and mini programs now cover more than 200 sub-sectors — e-commerce, food and beverage, retail and online-to-offline most visibly. In practice the requests cluster into a handful of shapes: a mall, a restaurant, a booking tool, a company site.
Custom or template
Development comes in two forms, custom build and template, and each has its case. An SME should pick according to its own situation rather than the market’s fashion: the build that fits the business is the right one, and a template that fits is a better answer than a custom build that does not.
What decides it in the end is what the mini program is for. If it is a shopfront that has to look like the business and grow with it, custom. If it is a channel that has to exist by next month, template first and rebuild later — but go in knowing which one you bought.
XZS Tech is a Shenzhen-based development company. We build custom mini programs, WeChat and mobile apps, e-commerce systems and corporate websites, covering requirement analysis, design, development and after-sales support, and we hand over the source code at delivery.
If you are planning something along the lines of what this article describes, tell us the scenario and we will come back with an approach and a cost range. Call 0755-82494862, or reach us through the contact page at hk.xiaozhushoukeji.cn/en/contact-en/. The first conversation costs nothing.
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