While going down the rabbit whole of looking through seller profiles we found a new site, szwego.com. We never heard of it before, so naturally we investigated and wanted to be the first ones to talk about it. In this post we will explain what we found out about it, how it works in connection with WeChat and where I see it come in handy for sellers, and for us as end users. It has some promising features.

Example Link: https://a2017090616080725510.szwego.com/static/index.html#/shop_detail/A2017090616080725510

Table of Contents

1. About Szwego
2. What is Szwego used for
3. How to use Szwego as a potential customer
4. Where JadeShip sees Szwego in the future
5. For Sellers / Membership

About Szwego.com

Surprisingly there is very little I can tell you about the background. The site doesn't have a Wikipedia entry. Google gives us very few results and only a handful of mentions on western websites.

What I could find out is that it was founded in 2014 and stands for Shenzhen Wego Technology Co., Ltd.

The website's slogan is: "Cloud shared photo album for your own convenience"

Szwego Link: https://www.szwego.com/

An example look at a store page

What is Szwego used for?

Szwego is used to make your WeChat Albums available to a wider audience. It's made especially for seller/customer interactions, for business purposes, and not as a private social network.

For those who don't know WeChat albums, they are comparable to Instagram Story Highlights. Basically, friends can see them for a limited amount of time, but they can come to your profile to take another look at them. Almost all sellers use them to show new products.

The advantages:

• Public Availability
• Customers don't need a WeChat or Szwego Account
• No friends list limitations
• Desktop and Mobile useability

Similarities to Yupoo

Yupoo and Szwego are very similar, although Szwego has a few advantages which we will point out later in this post.

Both are image sharing platforms, that allow the creator to put the images into albums, which can then be put into categories. Both also allow for the creator/seller to have link contact information.

How to use Szwego as a potential customer

After opening a szwego link you can browse the sellers albums.

You can click any entries from a album page to open it. You can then read the full text.

Especially important is the menu bar at the bottom. The left button labeled "categories" lets you filter the items by categories. The middle button allows you to contact the seller, it gives you their phone number and wechat name.

Next to the search bar at the top you can also filter by date and look at the sellers videos.

Use Google Chrome to translate it to English. Of course it's mainly about pictures, but the image titles and the website's functions can be translated through Chrome.

Where JadeShip sees Szwego in the future

We think that the site is extremely promissing. It's almost as if it's made for us.

Szwego has many advantages over the existing solutions, WeChat and Yupoo.

Why Szwego is better than WeChat

For a seller publishing on WeChat requires the customer to have WeChat too, which has only gotten harder recently (click here to find out how to unblock your WeChat). It's also restricted to mobile and hard to share on the web.

A solution like Szwego that is accessible by anyone from anywhere, that's easily shared looks like a catalyst to store growth.

But most importantly, Szwego and WeChat don't even compete, with Szwego you can simply import your WeChat Albums. The only remaining question is what to share in promotions and with potential customers. Here we see Szwego in a favorable position since it allows for more organic shares.

Why Szwego is better than Yupoo

Now, I must say I have not used Yupoo in creator mode.

First of all, Yupoo has a tendency to simply not work through some western internet providers.

Secondly, Yupoo is more intended as a image sharing platform and less as a sales platform, although it is used as such with great effect.

Yupoo requires manual integrations and uploads, which is slow compared to automatic imports from WeChat, which every seller uses anyways.

Also, Yupoo also has a premium membership for creators.

Verdict

We'd love to see Szwego become the next big thing, because it's so accessible. I never browse my WeChat moments, because I usually deal with Reps on my desktop PC. My yupoo just didn't work for a long time.

Szwego has great potential and little speaking against it, except for the fact that it costs the seller a 1-digit amount per month.

For Sellers

We generally don't advise sellers (or anyone for that matter), but we thought this is interesting for transparency for everyone involved.

Szwego Membership

Szwego comes with a 7 days trial period. It starts after you initially log in through WeChat authentification. After that it costs 288 rmb (~$40) per year.

Membership Perks:

• Exclusive VIP Badge
• Sync between Szwego and WeChat Albums
• Mass Messaging Followers
• Image Search for Customers
• Log in on multiple devices simultaneously and more easily
• Batch Import from the Web and QQ

Read all about the perks here: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/EASXY2InpWCp3FdRcQ86Og?

Apparently you can use the free version to do single uploads.

These benefits are only interesting if you want to operate a store. As a customer you don't need an account and shouldn't make one, since it will just work for 7 days.

Disclaimer

We are not affiliated with Szwego. We have not been briefed by them, all features described are described to our best knowledge by personal research. Use at your own risk.