This article was contributed by our WeChat reader 意识刘 and edited by KUKU. We welcome guest submissions; please contact ymlulu at outlook.com.

[2023.8 Update] Weee! is celebrating its 8th anniversary, with many popular items on sale for as low as 50% off. The promotion runs from August 4 to August 10.

If you really cannot eat that much, one effective workaround is to use Weee as a middle step. Weee is a North American Asian grocery delivery platform, and purchases currently can post as dining purchases. In other words, you may be able to convert grocery spending into dining spending through Weee and earn historically high AMEX dining multipliers.

[2022.1 Update] Weee now partners with many cashback websites, and non-points orders can earn some cashback. See cashbackmonitor for details:

Based on those rates, here are the recommendations:

  • New users: choose TopCashback
  • Existing users spending $35~$133: choose TopCashback
  • Existing users spending less than $35 or more than $133: choose Rakuten

[The following was originally published on January 1, 2021]

Before We Begin

As the pandemic continued and going out became less convenient, food delivery and online grocery shopping gradually took off in the US. After more than half a year of intense competition, the major food delivery apps reached a relatively saturated market. After going public, their discounts and promos became much less generous than before. Many apps also started expanding into other areas. For example, DoorDash and Uber Eats added convenience store delivery. In online grocery shopping, better-known names like Instacart and Shipt partner with major mainstream supermarkets across North America and occupy most of the market.

For Asian groceries, Yamibuy was one of the earlier players. Over the past year, another Asian grocery shopping app, Weee!, has risen quickly. Because the company was still in an early growth stage, had recently received substantial investment and partnerships from both China and the US, including Alipay, and because of its merchant-category friendliness (it can post as grocery store), there were still many ways to maximize deals. This article introduces some money-saving ideas that were available in 2021, as a starting point for readers to develop even more advanced strategies.

About Weee!

Weee! claims to be the largest Asian grocery shopping site in North America. The company was founded in 2015 and initially served the Bay Area. Starting in late 2019, it gradually expanded into Chinese-American population centers such as Los Angeles.

From online posts, many Chinese workers who took part-time warehouse jobs reported that the produce quality was quite good. A lot of inventory arrived from China or local sources and was shipped out from the warehouse to customers the very next day. The author had the same impression personally: the winter jujubes ordered from Weee! last December and shipped directly from China were very fresh, with a very obvious difference versus a bag from a local Chinese supermarket that was half spoiled.

Service Area

Because of the pandemic, Weee! grew rapidly in 2020. It established sites in many major US cities and gradually built its own warehouses, along with stable supply channels and logistics. One major issue with many Chinese-language apps is unreliable logistics that lead to a poor user experience. Its service areas currently include:

  • East Coast: New York, Washington DC, Boston, and surrounding areas;
  • West Coast: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego,
  • Texas: Houston, Austin, and more

When registering, enter your zipcode to check whether delivery is available.

Registration and Rewards

If you sign up through a referral link, new users can get a $20 coupon (with a $35 minimum purchase). You also get a free 1-month membership trial. Members receive discounted prices, an extra 2% cashback on all purchases, and paid members have no minimum-spend requirement for free shipping. Feel free to use the contributor’s and blog’s referral link:

Using Weee!

You can place orders on Weee! either directly through the website or through the app. It supports a Chinese-language interface, which is especially helpful for older users who do not read English. At the moment, there are not many cashback portals available for it.

Its primary growth channel is referrals. The Weee! app looks very similar to the website. Aside from the payment page not being especially polished, the overall experience is smooth. Non-paying members, including regular users and trial members, must place orders of at least $35 to get free shipping.

The payment page appears only after you finish selecting items and choose the delivery date and time slot, which can be as soon as the next day. You first choose a payment method at this step, without entering a card number yet.

Payment Methods and How It Posts

Weee! supports multiple payment methods, including:

  • Visa/Master/Discover/UnionPay cards, including Chinese credit cards;
  • Apple Pay (AMEX can be selected);
  • PayPal (AMEX can be selected);
  • Alipay and various other methods.

The merchant category can post as grocery store. If you use AMEX, it may also trigger various dining credits. Only after clicking the payment button do you reach the page to enter your card number or select a card:

Tips and Tricks

Weee! is a fascinating merchant, with some interesting ways to use it.

AMEX Posting and Reloads

On Amex/VISA/Master, Weee! posts as Grocery supermarket spending, so it can normally trigger bonus rewards on supermarket-category credit cards. Interestingly, for AMEX credit card purchases, it may also trigger dining credits, meaning it can satisfy both grocery-category rewards and dining credits at the same time. This requires using an Amex card via Apple Pay.

Weee! also supports account reloads, and at one point it became an effective method for many readers to use AMEX dining benefits. See:

It supports reloads in multiple denominations. Reload page: https://www.sayweee.com/zh/points_group/buy

Add-On Orders and Creative Uses

One important thing to note is that after placing an order and before shipment, specifically before 1 PM on the day before delivery, Weee! lets you place an add-on order for any amount. You simply place a new order directly without modifying the existing order, and no extra shipping fee is charged, as shown below. The new order can use any payment method, and it will arrive together with the previous order. This opens up some clever opportunities for maximizing promos.

[First order] Because Weee! supports PayPal, and non-paying members need the first order to reach $35, you can use PayPal + Amex Plat as the payment method to fully use the monthly $30 benefit.

[Add-on orders] Since Weee! add-on orders support changing payment methods and arbitrary payment amounts, they are very well suited for small-amount, high-return promotions.

  • Common examples include AMEX Shop Small ($10-$5)
  • Apple Pay offers (common ones include N transactions of $5-$2, $10-$5, or 3 purchases of any amount for $10 back)
  • Targeted Alipay discounts that appear from time to time, such as ¥30 off
  • Promotions on Chinese credit cards, such as Visa China weekly $20 back

Purchase example:

A recently workable setup, using a PayPal Amex first order plus weekly China Visa, would look like this: $35 (PayPal +AMEX Plat)+$15*4 (China Visa) -$30-$5*4=$95-$50, which is better than half off!! If you also have a few different flavors of AMEX personal Platinum cards, you could basically cover a month of grocery shopping this way!!

Of course, if you do not want the hassle, you can just place one order and use a card with strong Grocery Store returns, such as AMEX Plat 10x/Gold 7x/CSR credits or Pay Back/Prestige credits/Chase Freedom Flex 5x…

The only limit on maximizing these deals is your imagination…

Spending Promotions

Registration and Rewards