Facebook, the social media network that owns WhatsApp has announced that it will start charging WhatsApp business users and also provide e-commerce options and hosting services for businesses that use WhatsApp business to communicate with their customers.
WhatsApp conveyed that it will mainly invest in 3 major areas which are Shopping, Facebook Hosting services and Business Sales.
For the shopping segment, WhatsApp says that it will expand ways for people to check out available products and make purchases right from a chat. It should help businesses that are most affected in the Covid period.
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With Facebook Hosting services, WhatsApp will allow small and medium-sized businesses to store chats, chat history and other related data on Facebook’s servers. This will allow small and medium size businesses to get started, sell products, keep their inventory up to date, and quickly respond to messages they receive, wherever their employees are.
Business Sales is mainly focused on charging WhatsApp business users for some of the services that WhatsApp will offer, which according to the company will help them continue building a business of their own while providing and expanding free end-to-end encrypted text, video and voice calling for more than two billion people.
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As for the availability of the feature, the shopping feature will arrive before the end of 2020, the hosting service will be made available in 2021. There’s no update as to when WhatsApp will start charging WhatsApp Business users, as the company says that will happen in coming few months.