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WhatsApp already lets you chat with businesses, but you may soon be able to find them through the app as well. This week, the company began testing a directory feature that allows users to browse and contact local stores and services on WhatsApp. The tool is currently only available in São Paulo, Brazil, but a screenshot shared by Will Cathcart, the manager of WhatsApp, shows that you can use the feature to sort businesses by category and how close they are to you.
Matt Idema, vice president of corporate messaging at Facebook, said Reuters the test covers “thousands†of businesses and services. He added that the company would then have to make the feature available in India and Indonesia. “Based on feedback from people who have tried it over the next few months, we will consider expanding this service to other cities and other types of businesses available on WhatsApp,†Cathcart said. said separately on Twitter.
Although it is best known as an app that you use to chat with your friends and family, WhatsApp has grown more and more in the ecommerce space. Since 2018, it has offered a separate app that businesses can use to communicate with their customers. More recently, it has gone out of its way to allow people to shop directly from WhatsApp. Sometimes this hasn’t always worked for the company, as it did when it changed its privacy policy earlier in the year. On that note, Cathcart said that WhatsApp will not record a user’s location or the businesses they browse when using the directory feature.
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