Report: Facebook Messenger adds buy button
Facebook has announced that companies can now sell products through their Messenger bots through a newly added buy button that enables the people to buy products from a bot without needing to leave Messenger and a way for brands to direct people from their Facebook ads to their Messenger bots.
Now, people can have Messenger automatically plug in the credit card and address information attached to their Messenger profiles when buying something from a Messenger bot without any need to leave Facebook’s app. Companies have to use either Stripe or PayPal to process these payments.
Facebook isn’t only making it easier for people to buy from Messenger bots. It’s also giving bots new tools to increase their sales through Messenger.
With this new functionality, consumers will be able to make payments without leaving Messenger. It’s currently available to some developers as a closed beta, and the Facebook expects to roll it out more broadly by the end of the year.
On the top, Facebook is also giving people the capability to share bots, as well as messages from bots, with their friends through Messenger. All shared messages from bots will include the bot icon, name and CTA that allows a person to start a thread with that bot. “This feature will help you reach the 1B+ people on Messenger today,” Facebook said.
So far, developers and businesses have built more than 30,000 bots for Messenger, Facebook said.