Facebook Hopes To Win Over Retailers With Messenger App
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Messenger app aims to be customer service tool for e-retailers
In an important development that lays the groundwork for Messenger to become a key platform for business, Facebook has announced that its Messenger app will be a customer service tool for e-retailers Everlane and Zulily, according to The Verge.
Now, the retailers can send receipts and shipping updates through the app, and shoppers can add to their order via the app as well.
According to The Verge, since it split Messenger off from the main app last spring, Facebook has been subtly paving the way for its messaging platform to become mega-messengers that combine communication, gaming, e-commerce, and other categories into a single lucrative channel. As part of this preparation, Facebook added video and voice calling; it added a way for users to send cash for free; and it lured in PayPal’s well regarded CEO to run the product.
Now, Facebook is ready to enter the e-retail game. The partnership with online clothing site Everlane and flash sale site Zulily marks the entry of Facebook into a whole new level of communication. Shoppers can not only receive receipts and shipping updates via Messenger, but they can also use Messenger to add items to existing orders placed on the retailer’s own websites, according to Re/code.
The main benefit of this new feature is that it can help retailers avoid bombarding customers with multiple emails after placing an order online by creating a continuing "conversation" with the customer, providing shipping and delivery updates, an option to modify the order, and even continue shopping with the retailer in the app.
The platform requires customers of sites partnering with Facebook to opt in to allow retailers to contact them on Messenger. Everlane is using the service primarily to send information and answer questions about existing orders, though it seems likely that customers eventually will be able to place new orders that way, too.
“Over time we think this will become a way to not only build stronger relationships with customers, but to ultimately drive demand and new purchases,” Everlane CEO Michael Preysman told Re/code.