From WhatsApp Pay to catalog and now a shopping cart, Facebook is building a huge online market with the instant message apps that are gradually getting all the features of online stores.
The social media behemoth has announced the launch of shopping carts to WhatsApp, a move that came weeks after it introduced catalog to the market side of its instant messaging apps.
“Starting today, we’re excited to bring carts to WhatsApp. Carts are great when messaging businesses that typically sell multiple items at once, like a local restaurant or clothing store. With carts, people can browse a catalog, select multiple products and send the order as one message to the business. This will make it simpler for businesses to keep track of order inquiries, manage requests from customers and close sales,” the company said in a statement.
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Just like in other online stores, the cart helps you to reserve items when you visit businesses you plan to order from. You only have to tap the shopping button next to their name, and select the items you want to buy when the catalogue opens, then tap “add to Cart”. You can repeat the process until you get all the products you need. You then can review and edit the contents of the cart before sending it to the business via a WhatsApp message.
Facebook rolled out the WhatsApp cart feature yesterday around the world, signaling preparation for anticipated Christmas season’s business boom.
The introduction of catalogs earlier as a WhatsApp feature, where people can easily see the options available, and companies have the opportunity to organize their chats around specific articles, spurred the need for the cart.
On the other news, DoorDash sets shares in its initial public offering at $102 per share, to raise $3.37 billion, the company announced on Tuesday.
The IPO puts DoorDash’s valuation at around $38 billion, which is more than double of its valuation of $16 billion during a private fundraising round it had in June.
The startup was founded in 2013 and has the backing of Vision Fund, a subsidiary of Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank Group, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and sovereign wealth fund Government of Singapore Investment Corp.
It has been a race to survive in the US food delivery market, but surge in demand due to pandemic restrictions spurred growth that UberEats, Grubhub and Postmates have also benefited from.
DoorDash is the largest US food delivery company for restaurants, and has aimed to sell 33 million shares at $90 to $95 per share according to its filing. It had earlier targeted a price range of between $75 and $85. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs will underwrite the offering.
In a pandemic defying move, the food delivery company joins other Silicon big names like Palantir Technologies Inc and Snowflakes Inc, in issuing blockbuster IPOs.
DoorDash said its Q3 revenue reached $879 million, a significant record compared to the $239 million it recorded in the same period last year. The company also posted a loss of $43 million after reporting its first quarterly profit of $23 million in the second quarter.
Government stimulus packages and hope for vaccines cleared the path for DoorDash and other tech companies’ boosted sales during the last quarters of the year to spike their revenue.
The San Francisco-based company was among the tech companies that have witnessed revenue boom from the pandemic. DoorDash has more than 18 million customers and one million drivers, and has recently expanded beyond food deliveries into groceries, pet food and convenience store items.
DoorDash will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “Dash.” The company is poised to become the highest valued food-delivery service when it debuts.
It joins the likes of Airbnb, Wish-parent ContextLogic among others aiming to drive the biggest trading in the NYSE for the month of December.