WhatsApp With 'Carts' Simplifies Shopping: Helping Users, Making Facebook Happy

WhatsApp dollar sign

WhatsApp is popular for many reasons. Besides having Facebook behind its back, the messaging app is also easy to use and straightforward.

Since Facebook acquired it, the messaging app is giving Facebook literally return for its investment. Most notably, after it announced that it won't be charging users the $1 fee starting 2016.

Long story short, WhatsApp is literally giving Facebook no money.

What's more, WhatsApp said on its page that it does anything to improve Facebook product experiences.

So what could Facebook do to make WhatsApp at least profitable?

First, it started by sending Facebook a little and some of its user data. This doesn't help Facebook earn money, at least not directly, as the data only helps Facebook know more about its users.

The second way, is by embracing its business users.

And this time, that second way is getting clearer, as WhatsApp is becoming a store counter for users to discuss products and coordinate sales.

Through its Catalogs feature for example, the messaging app started allowing users to quickly see what’s available and helped businesses organize their chats around particular items.

After Facebook announced that WhatsApp is going to be a hub for shopping, payments and customer service, Facebook then made WhatsApp to introduce a Shopping button.

This time, it's Cart's turn to arrive to WhatsApp, as explained by Facebook is a news post.

"Starting today, we’re excited to bring carts to WhatsApp. Carts are great when messaging businesses that typically sell multiple items at once, like a local restaurant or clothing store. With carts, people can browse a catalog, select multiple products and send the order as one message to the business. This will make it simpler for businesses to keep track of order inquiries, manage requests from customers and close sales."

To use this Carts feature, users just need to open WhatsApp and find the items they want to buy from a business profile of the business they would like to order from. Tap in the Shopping button to then tap the 'add to cart' link.

Users can 'view cart' to see all the products they've added to the cart, or tap 'add more' if they wish to navigate back to the catalog to continue adding more products. Users can also edit the quantity for each product added to their cart.

"Once your cart is complete, send it as a message to the business," explained Facebook.

In this world plagued with the 'COVID-19' coronavirus, many people are still stuck wherever they are with less ways to buy the things they want.

With pretty much of the world is still battling the virus, Facebook is gearing WhatsApp to be ready for the end of the year holidays, in order to benefit the online buying trends that were created by this coronavirus crisis.

Here, Facebook wants WhatsApp to be present where the money is.

Facebook knows that it is already capable of building a captive audience throughout its properties, and this is why Facebook is confident about introducing more e-commerce methods, as it aims for more revenue sources.

Published: 
09/12/2020