Your groceries are now just a WhatsApp away

In a first-ever, end-to-end shopping experience, Meta’s popular messaging app WhatsApp has now waded into eCommerce

Meta announced Monday that it was collaborating with Jio Platforms in India to bring the first-ever grocery shopping feature to WhatsApp.

It would create what the American tech giant called “the first end-to-end buying experience” on the messaging service.

JioMart is the name of the grocery shopping service, which has been tested by firms for the past two years on a small number of consumers.

The grocery shopping product is anticipated to have a large audience and substantial turnovers because both firms have significant sway over the Indian market.

The debut of the new service coincides with WhatsApp’s rising popularity in India. It recently acquired authorization to expand its UPI-powered payments service to about 100 million people in the nation, which more than 500 million people use.

In a statement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg said they were “excited to launch our partnership with JioMart in India.”

“People can now buy groceries from JioMart right in a chat. Business messaging is an area with real momentum, and chat-based experiences like this will be the go-to way people and businesses communicate in the years to come,” he said.

The feature is currently only accessible in India, as was already mentioned. But there was no word on international markets, especially for those regions which are more internet and mobile payment savvy.

Being a neighbor, Pakistan, too, would be on the lookout for porting the feature across the border, with quick and instant delivery services finding the most success in recent years thanks to Covid-19 constrictions.

But rest assured, if the service succeeds in India, it may very well spread to other countries, including India.