WhatsApp Is Introducing A New Feature “Flows” To Bolster Shopping Experience

Reports claim that all Merchants will have different building blocks ranging from a text box to a calendar and a seat picker to create these experiences. The messaging platform stated that these tools will be available to businesses in the coming months. In addition to that, the platform is also working on a support page for Flows. It highlights different tasks like booking appointments, product customization, logging into their accounts, filling out forms, and signing up for events.

The platform has been testing flows with businesses including Brazilan bank Banco Pan, retailer MagaLu, Lenovo, Indian travel service Redbus, India-based bank SBI, and car reselling platform Spinny. Nikila Srinivasan, VP of business messaging at Meta stated:

“Shopping & e-commerce is one of the greatest verticals we want to focus on. The goal is to allow business messaging in a way that businesses and people can do a lot more right in the chat thread. We are trying to build rich experiences within the conversation, and that’s where Flows comes in”

It is pertinent to mention here that Meta will not charge merchants for Flows separately. The chats with Flows will fit in under the current payment model. In addition to that, the company is also working on new payment partners for the checkout experience for customers in India.

Last year, the messaging giant partnered with Reliance Jio for an end-to-end shopping experience. However, customers could only pay through the UPI-based WhatsApp Pay without leaving the app. Recently, the company teamed up with payment gateway providers Razorpay and PayU to allow users to pay through other UPI apps, and credit, and debit cards. WhatsApp introduced consumers to merchant payment in Brazil and Singapore. The platform is working quite hard to improve users’ experience. I don’t think there is any other messaging app out there that introduced a plethora of features to improve the overall experience.