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Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has introduced a new shopping feature called “Carts” to its platform. It lets customers browse a catalog, select multiple products, and send the order as one message to businesses on the service.
The new tool has been rolled out globally for iPhone and Android users.
Carts is aimed at helping businesses keep track of order inquiries, manage requests from customers, and close sales, said the company in a statement.
The launch of the feature comes after WhatsApp introduced the shopping button in November to let users access companies’ storefronts from the app. It’s also arriving before the December holiday season, when online and other non-store sales are expected to increase by roughly 20% to 30%.
Earlier in February, the instant messaging application said it had over 2 billion monthly users around the world, up from 1.5 billion monthly users a year ago. In July, the company claimed to have had 50 million WhatsApp Business app users.
WhatsApp has also added a number of features recently to ramp up its ecommerce service for clients and customers. These include QR codes for businesses and a catalog-sharing tool on its application.
The Facebook-owned messaging application also launched its payments feature in India, its biggest market by users. However, its rollout in Brazil was suspended by the central bank – just after a week of operations – in an attempt to evaluate the potential risks to the country’s payment infrastructure.
Facebook has been trying to push WhatsApp in payments and the social commerce space in many of its largest markets. These new features could help WhatsApp – which already has a sizable user base in India – to compete against big ecommerce players such as Amazon, Walmart’s Flipkart, and Reliance Retail.
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