Facebook-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp The company told Reuters on Wednesday it has rolled out a new feature to make it possible for users to search for businesses within its app for the first time. The feature is initially being tested in Sao Paulo, Brazil and allows WhatsApp users to find shops and services through a directory within the app. This comes as Facebook’s latest move to promote e-commerce on its services. “This can be… the primary way people start a commerce process in WhatsApp,” Matt Idema, FacebookThe vice president of business messaging said in an interview this week.
Unlike WhatsApp, Facebook and instagram, does not run ads in your app. Idema said previously businesses were packaging or promoting their WhatsApp numbers on websites or using Facebook ads to drive users into chats on WhatsApp. The instant messaging service has increasingly attracted business users with a specialized app for small firms and an API, or type of software interface, for larger businesses to connect their systems to generate revenue. With online retail booming during the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook has rolled out in-app purchase features to its apps. In June, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook’s Shops feature would expand to WhatsApp in several countries. In recent years, WhatsApp has also launched shopping tools such as product catalogs and shopping carts.
WhatsApp said the new test will cover thousands of businesses in some areas of Sao Paulo across categories such as food, retail and local services. Idema said that India and Indonesia are good candidates to expand this facility. However, Idema did not rule out the possibility that WhatsApp May offer in-app advertising in the future.
“There’s definitely a takeaway on ads, which is Facebook’s core business model, that in the long run I think will be part of WhatsApp’s business model in some form or the other,” he said. WhatsApp says that about one million advertisers currently use Facebook. And Instagram’s ‘click to WhatsApp’ ads to send users to the messaging app.
(with inputs from Reuters)
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