It has been eye opening to see how much credit card use there is in China now. It seems like about 20% of shoppers at supermarkets use credit cards. They have to enter a PIN number to use it.
It was news to me to discover that you can use your Discover Card in China wherever you see the ubiquitous Union Pay logo.
I've just recently checked out an online shopping website called
TaoBao. My guess is that it is the "Amazon" of China. Being that it is run by Alibaba, it's no wonder that Alipay is the online payment option for Taobao. According to its
Wikipedia page, Taobao did USD $29 billion in online ecommerce in 2009!
Check out Alipay's great
customer education video about how to use credit cards to buy things online in China.
I'm going to try to use my VISA card to buy something on Taobao and see if it works.
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