Going forward it seems you will soon be able to shop online from the WhatsApp mobile app itself.
At the F8 annual developers conference, Facebook
talked about ways to improve WhatsApp for businesses and is trying to
change the experience while chatting with businesses. While we would
have to wait to shop directly from WhatsApp, Facebook is now adding the
option to allow business to add a product catalogue inside WhatsApp
chats.
With the new feature, WhatsApp users will be able to see a business catalogue right within WhatsApp when chatting with a business. “With catalogs, businesses can showcase their goods so people can easily discover them,” claimed Facebook. It would be interesting to see as to how Facebook integrates this feature inside chats as we wait for it to arrive later this year.
Facebook is expected to rapidly add more business features like these going ahead as we get closer to WhatsApp payments being launched officially. “We have a test that is running in India for WhatsApp (payments) now, we’re hoping to launch in several other countries at some point, but I don’t want to put a timeframe on that here, but it’s something that we’re actively working on,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently in an earnings call with analysts.
Facebook
has taken a keen interest in helping businesses to connect with
potential customers. Apart from WhatsApp, Facebook is also looking at
ways push businesses on its Messenger app. Facebook has created an
appointment experience so people can book appointments within a
Messenger conversation. With this new feature, users will be soon able
to book an appointment with businesses (like car dealerships, stylists
or cleaning services, etc) within the Messenger app itself.
At the ongoing F8 conference, Facebook has also announced that it is adding lead generation templates to Ads Manager. This feature is expected to help businesses to easily create an ad around a simple Q&A in Messenger “to learn more about their customers.”