Facebook has introduced an online payment system on its messenger app, to allow businesses to transact. The statement said, “we’re now actively building capabilities for brands and businesses to be discovered on Messenger.”
This gets the Facebook Messenger slowly moving towards becoming an open E-commerce platform, with over one billion existing users. Earlier this year, Facebook opened the app for the developers to make bots, and now there are over 30,000 of them.
With this update, Facebook said that it is giving developers and businesses the opportunity to bring in their own UI elements within the connections they have with their customers. This gives a seamless experience. The new commerce platform will include more ways to buy and share and more context.
The app will now allow business to sell directly (meaning payment will be received like in other e-commerce platforms. For customers, the app-based service will allow more reach and ease of purchase. Messages with payments and payments through the enhanced Messenger mobile web view is soon going to be available for select developers as a closed beta version. Businesses and developers can apply to be included in the beta program.
Just like most other e-commerce establishments, this one is also going to have the option to share the experiences. This feature is largely created to get the users to be comfortable with as an e-commerce platform. The platform will now have a home screen with a welcome message. The platform will also allow businesses to customize their own introductory messages.
Unlike other e-commerce apps, instead of a product based search, it appears that this will be a seller based search for customers. This will allow sellers to grow in a different dimension from the other forums.
Monetizing has been the last thing on Facebook’s build up until now. However, this year did see some word rising about Facebook officially introducing WhatsApp as a platform for businesses. How it can be done, seemed a bit blurry, but with these changes in Facebook Messenger, it is becoming more and more clear about the company’s intentions. The general diversion of the concept of monetization by Facebook is truly refreshing but, how far this goes in getting the users interested in the new features will only be revealed in due course of time.
