A week in Shenzhen

View when you 100+ floors high

I recently spent a week in Shenzhen and had quite an experience.

Some highlights in no particular order:

1. QRs are everywhere: QRs are a way of life, whether its payments, opening a mini app, ordering anything online, entry pass to metro, you will find them everywhere
2. Digital Wallets >>>> Cash/Card: I could use my Credit card in exactly three places during the entire trip — hotel checkout, Starbucks, Xiaomi store. A lot of restaurants, shops, cabs accepted only AliPay/WeChatPay. Cash was only looked as a rare fallback.
3. Digital wallets are more than payments: Customer pays, retailer, retailer pays distributor all via digital wallets. Wallets have credit score, lending, asset management, insurance almost everything you want to do with your money.
4. Merchants are still coping up: Since customers moved to wallets, merchants had no choice. But a lot of them don’t know what fees they are charged.
5. Luckin coffee: is good but I found app-only ordering a little too much. Walked into the store, paid the saleswoman via wechat and grabbed my coffee. Mush faster than opening mini-app, selecting, paying and then waiting. It’s a bit of an overkill. Coffee was okay.
6. Order ahead: Ordering KFC, McD etc before walking into the store and then picking up directly from the counter, seem pretty popular
7. Power-bank rentals: If phone and digital wallet is your lifeline, you got to have power-bank renting machines everywhere. You pay a deposit (100RMB) if you don’t have enough credit history on WechatPay or AliPay. Renting is about 2RMB/hour
8. Mobike survives: Ofo on its way out
9. Delivery bikes and delivery agents everywhere: Riding a small customised electric bike, you will find them delivering food, goods etc everywhere, all the time
10. Infra: Hi-speed trains, great connectivity, good public transport goes without saying. 95% of entire taxi and bus fleet is electric. Low noise for the win
11. Food scene: Great food scene, something for everyone. Social ordering is also done via mini-apps (you create a group and everyone punches in their order)
12. Electronic Market: Crazy place with all possible gadgets and more. You cannot leave without buying a few items
13. Face-id: ATMs had Face-id based withdrawal option. Couldn’t try this one but the option was there