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<div class="wzzy"><i class="source">Source: Xinhua</i>|<i class="time"> 2018-01-27 13:52:06</i>|<i class="editor domPcc">Editor: Shi Yinglun</i></div>
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<p>BEIJING, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) &#8212; Chinese Internet giant Tencent has opened its first cashier-less pop-up store in Shanghai in a move to tap into the country&#8217;s promising unmanned retail industry, China Daily reported Saturday.</p>
<p>At the 300-square meter shop named We Life, shoppers can use WeChat Pay, the proprietary e-wallet of messenger app WeChat, to buy items without paying cash, swiping a card, or interacting with a single human being, according to the newspaper.</p>
<p>Customers can use a phone to scan a quick response code at the gate, which enables user identification and automatic payment. All products are equipped with radio-frequency identification tags that use magnetic chips to store information such as price and inventory.</p>
<p>The store will be open until Feb. 4 and showcases Tencent&#8217;s payment capabilities in the realm of physical retail, the report quoted Bai Zhenjie, an executive in charge of retail at WeChat Pay, as saying.</p>
<p>Facial recognition and a credit rating system would be incorporated in future stores, Bai said.</p>
<p>Smart shopping has gained traction in China after an unmanned 24-hour BingoBox convenience store opened in Shanghai in June. In July, e-commerce giant Alibaba opened a cashier-less cafe in Hangzhou, capital of east China&#8217;s Zhejiang Province.</p>
<p>China&#8217;s unmanned retail sector will reach 65 billion yuan (10.2 billion U.S. dollars) in transaction volume by 2020, up from an estimated 20 billion yuan in 2017, according to iResearch.</p>
<p>The development of the emerging sector has benefited from the fast expansion of e-payment technology. China&#8217;s banking institutions handled more than 25.7 billion mobile payments in 2016 with a transaction volume of 157.55 trillion yuan, according to a report by the People&#8217;s Bank of China, the central bank.</p>
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