Recently, WhatsApp added a “Shopping Button” on the messaging platform. It directs the user straight to the list of items on sale. Now, the company has added an “ADD TO CART” feature.

A support page on the WhatsApp website(via Gadgets360) explains the ways to use the new feature. Accordingly, the new update will show a CART button when browsing through the catalog.  Users can personally add many items of a seller to their Cart and make shopping on WhatsApp easier. As you browse through a business catalog, you can select a product and inside you will find two options- ADD TO CART and MESSAGE BUSINESS. On Selecting the first, the item will get added to your cart.

After adding the items, you can continue to browse and add more items to the cart. Now, if you visit the same item again, the ADD TO CART will now change as VIEW CART. You can press that or a CART BUTTON at the top right of a catalog to see your list of items. Once you are finished with your list, you can share the entire list with your seller in one message.

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In case you have a doubt regarding the products, you can edit and send an inquiry message along with the added items. WhatsApp says that a product purchase isn’t complete unless confirmed by a seller. After the seller’s confirmation, you can pay via supported methods including WhatsApp Pay.

In case you don’t know, WhatsApp Pay is an in-chat payment feature that allows users to make transactions via WhatsApp to their contact list. It is a UPI-based payment service to send and receive money online. The company recently rolled out the feature in countries like India where it nearly has a 400 million user base.

Anyway, the CART feature, which is rolling out globally to enable businesses to process orders seamlessly, is just an icing on the cake for the business catalogs. For the unaware, WhatsApp rolled a new Catalog feature for WhatsApp business last year. It allows companies who run a business account to create a catalog of products with prices and information.

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Facebook keeps expanding the features WhatsApp boasts off. Just recently, it included the ability to unlock the app with your fingerprint as a privacy measure. Now it is rolling out a new feature called Catalogs for the Business version of the app.

There is a business version of WhatsApp called WhatsApp Business for those who use the messaging app for small scale businesses. It has all the features of the standard version in addition to special features to make it easier to reach your customers or for them to reach you. The new Catalogs feature now allows you to do more.

With Catalogs, you can literally create a catalog of the products you sell complete with prices and information about the items. This way, you don’t have to keep going back and forth with a customer providing details (images, specifications, etc.) of the items or services you provide. This is not only good for the owner of the business but also makes it easier and saves time for prospective customers.

Catalogs is under testing in Brazil, Germany, India, Mexico, the UK, and the US at the moment but it is expected to roll out globally in the future.

In related news, WhatsApp Pay appears to have it a brick wall in India. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has informed the Supreme Court that the payment service does not comply with India’s data localization norms, hence it has directed the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to prevent a launch of the service, which has been under trial run for several months now, on India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

Back in August, the Supreme Court had requested that the Reserve Bank inform it about WhatsApp’s data local compliance. The response by RBI, which was dated November 1, informed the court that it hadn’t complied with the norms.

Apparently, WhatsApp is said to be storing payment data elements outside India beyond the duration the RBI issued via a circular back on June 26, 2019. These data includes transaction IDs, and retrieval reference numbers. So until WhatsApp complies with the law, they will not be allowed to have a full-scale launch.

WhatsApp Pay currently has 1 million beta users in India and is expected to have up to 400 million users when it eventually goes out of beta. When it does, it will compete with Google Pay, Amazon Pay, and Paytm.

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(Sources: 1, 2)

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