WhatsApp has created the ability for companies and individuals to create business accounts which allows customers to reach out for questions, customer service, and so on. We’ve also seen how these business accounts can help facilitate purchase inquiries by previewing products, but that will change soon, and possibly for the better.
The company has recently posted a video in which they are hinting that soon, customers will actually be able to directly purchase a product in WhatsApp itself. The video shows how a customer is asking a business about a product, before checking out and paying for the item directly in WhatsApp, with confirmation from both the customer and seller themselves.
It is unclear what kind of payment methods will be supported as the video doesn’t show, but it is an interesting move. Facebook has been trying to come up with ways to try and monetize WhatsApp. After all, with the number of users WhatsApp has, it would be foolish of Facebook to ignore all that potential revenue.
It is possible that maybe Facebook will take a cut from every purchase made, which could be quite substantial if enough businesses take advantage of it. In any case, we’ll have to wait and see how this will play out once the feature is rolled out to users.