WhatsApp Might Become a Lifeline for Businesses…

Facebook – the owners of the popular messaging platform, WhatsApp, has recently announced that they are increasing investment into shopping. With this announcement – they’ll be increasing their offering of tools which may help businesses sell more online.

In what I can assume is a technical advancement to aid businesses in the current climate that sees low footfall for businesses – Facebook is aiming to make it easier and more efficient for businesses to chat with new and potential customers through Whatsapp – by including new ways to browse, select and purchase products directly with the business – through the app.

In the past, we’ve seen roll-outs of new ways to shop on Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and most recently Instagram – and Whatsapp is the latest app to see on-app shopping features.

Adapting with the times

Now, more than ever, consumers are using apps to not only inform themselves on potential decisions but to directly make the decisions on. Ultimately, ordering products, services and things through apps are becoming more normal and accepted in 2020 and beyond.

According to the recent announcement from Facebook, consumers are done with the old ways:

“Many of the old ways in which people and businesses communicate are not working. While businesses spend billions of dollars annually managing phone calls, e-mails, and SMS, people do not want to wait on hold, get passed from person to person, or wonder if their messages were received.”

The new incoming features:

The new business tools focus on the following three areas:

1. Shopping
2. Facebook Hosting Services
3. Business Sales

Shopping

According to Facebook:

“We also want to make it easier for businesses to integrate these features into their existing commerce and customer solutions.”

Facebook Hosting Services

According to Facebook:

“We will also provide a new option for businesses to manage their WhatsApp messages via hosting services that Facebook plans to offer. Providing this option will make it easier for small and medium size businesses to get started, sell products, keep their inventory up to date, and quickly respond to messages they receive – wherever their employees are.”

Business Sales

Facebook has stated they’ll be charging for some of the services while offering other services like chat, video calling and messaging for free.

To read more on the announcement, click here.

Watch the Facebook video ‘The Future of Business Messaging’ which illustrates a sales transaction through the new features…