Mini programs turn up in more of daily life every year, and companies and sole traders keep asking the same question: does my category need one? Once the online plan is drawn, the conversation tends to move to the development company, to test whether the project is feasible and whether it is necessary. Here is our own view of which businesses should be planning one.
1. Service businesses that visit the customer
Categories where the service happens at the customer’s door are a natural fit. Waste collection is a good example: it is a persistent irritation for households, and a collection mini program solves it by sending someone to the address while recovering value from what is thrown away. Bottled water delivery works the same way — order in the app, and the driver sees the new order on the delivery-side app and routes to the address. Repair services let a customer book with one tap when something breaks at home or at work, and the technician responds to the job.
What these have in common is that the whole workflow can be organised around the order, which makes the operation more orderly rather than merely more convenient. It also opens up business the merchant could not reach before, and gives them a way to keep customers rather than lose them after the first visit.
2. Marketing companies
Much of the offline exhibition business was suspended during the pandemic, and marketing companies can move it online with a mini program. Once the build exists, an event or a trade fair can be held in the app: exhibits and sessions presented directly, attendees checking in through a check-in function, items saved for later so the follow-up conversation has something to refer to.
On results, the platform’s built-in reach does the work — sharing to a friend, sharing an image to Moments — which is what carries the event information outward. Paired with marketing modules, the same product serves different categories and different event formats: the back end lets the company edit the event information and pick the marketing tools, and once it is configured the client company can run with it. In practical terms it solves the temporary offline bottleneck, it gives client companies a wider choice of activity formats, and it gives them a channel that reaches further than a physical venue.
3. IoT businesses
Some connected-hardware categories need software to control the device and carry the data, so the user can operate it from a phone. Washing machines, refrigerators and even electric curtains are all controlled remotely now. But the app route has a problem that only appears after launch: the download and install step loses users before they ever reach the control screen.
A mini program avoids that. Once the hardware interface is connected, the mini program and the device exchange data, and the control interfaces let the app issue commands. There is no registration and no login either — WeChat authorisation is the login, which removes steps and improves the experience. For the device manual, all that is needed is a printed mini program QR code: scan, authorise, bind, and the device is on the phone.
The wider point
These three are examples rather than the whole list. Food ordering, malls and community group buying are all common forms with high frequency and high exposure. What the mini program changed for all of them is the cost of getting online: the upfront technical investment is lower than for a website or an app, and the promotion and operation afterwards is easier. What remains is the part that cannot be outsourced — deciding, from your own category and your own plan, what the product should be.
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