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WHATSAPP CONVERSATIONAL COMMERCE – EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

It is the brink of October and the shopping season is just around the corner. With people rushing to nearby stores to get their hands on their favorite products, the ecommerce segment is largely moving online. Digitization in ecommerce has brought many significant changes to the customer shopping experience. As much as it makes the customer’s life convenient, businesses can also leverage WhatsApp Business API and its exciting new features such as Commerce messages that now include product catalogues and shopping carts. 

Gone are the days when businesses compete with each other over lower prices to get customer’s attention. Today, the marketing approach of most brands is customer-centric which has made them more sensitive to the needs of their clients especially when it comes to conversational commerce on WhatsApp. With the induction of multi-product messages and single-product messages, the platform has made it easier and simpler for businesses to showcase their products and services to their customers without leaving the chat window. 

With this form of real-time interaction, customers can add their preferred items from the catalogue directly to their carts on WhatsApp and prompt the business to proceed with the next steps such as payment. Right from the first “Hi” to the brand to taking care of clients even after the sale is completed, the entire shopping experience has transformed making it more convenient and personalized than ever before.

HOW DOES CONVERSATIONAL COMMERCE WORK?

Conversational commerce has made its way on a platform that, according to Statista, is accessed by over 2 billion people on a monthly basis as of July, 2021. It has consequently made it easier for businesses to reach out to their target audience at every point of their purchasing journey. This form of interactive messaging is not like the distracting pop-ups or banners that not only irritate the customers but make them lose interest in the brand’s services. Rather it paves way for a meaningful conversation between a business and their potential clients thereby establishing a valuable and more personal relationship with them.

Benefits of conversational commerce

With the help of WhatsApp Business API, businesses can balance personalization and efficiency to create a seamless buying experience for their current as well as potential customers. Along with this, conversational commerce also offers the following benefits for both brands and its users:

More reach

Businesses can reach a wider set of audience by establishing a two-way form of communication. Here, brands are not only resolving customer queries but also empowering them proactively when it comes to helping them shop, finding what they need and completing the whole transaction on WhatsApp itself.

More sales

Conversational ecommerce is all about more reach, more personalized conversations and hence more sales. When businesses provide hands-on customer support to their clients, it automatically increases their chances of turning a lead into a conversion. 

More engagement

It is extremely important for customers to feel part of a conversation when they talk to a brand representative. WhatsApp chatbots, being the first point of contact for a brand’s clients these days, make sure that their interactions are as engaging as they are fruitful.

WHATSAPP COMMERCE MESSAGES

WhatsApp API has recently introduced two new types of interactive messages-

Single product message

These are messages that contain a single item from the whole inventory of a business.

Multi-product message 

These are messages that contain a selection of up to 30 products from the whole inventory of a business.

These types of interactive messages can be sent from one user to another and can also be reopened by a user in the same conversation. But they can’t be sent as notifications as they can only be sent as a part of the existing conversation. When these messages are used in combination with other navigation features such as list messages and reply buttons, customers can be fed exactly what they are looking for.

Once the users receive these messages, they can perform these 3 functions to proceed further.

  • View the products: A user can see the entire product catalogue or a single product according to their preferences. Once they select a product, WhatsApp API fetches the details of the product and displays it in a Product Detail Page (PDP) format.
  • Add products to the shopping cart: Once the user selects the products, they can add their selections to a shopping cart without leaving the chat. The cart is present in the business-customer chat thread until it is sent to the business.
  • Send the cart to the business: When the user selects all the items and adds it to the cart, they can send it to the business after which the business will direct them to the next steps such as delivery details and payment method. 

GET STARTED WITH WHIZARD

Chatbot automation and AI technologies are changing consumer habits and expectations and WhatsApp Business API is the tool that is helping businesses cope up with these changes. WhatsApp commerce messages are a step ahead in providing businesses the ease and comfort of doing business with their prospective clients. Conversational commerce is not just easier but it is a more useful way for businesses as well as customers to interact with each other. And Whizard API is here to guide you through all of that. Learn more about Whizard API

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