WhatsApp Business launches chat using QR Codes, makes further addition to catalog feature

New Delhi: Instant messaging app WhatsApp on Thursday introduced new features to businesses like starting a chat with a business using QR codes and also further expanded the catalog feature.

“Today we support more than 50 million WhatsApp Business app users. To help them and the thousands of larger businesses on the WhatsApp Business API get discovered, we’re introducing new features to start a chat with a business on WhatsApp and see what goods and services they offer,” WhatsApp said in a blog.

Starting a chat with a business using QR codes

Earlier when people came across an interesting business, they had to add its WhatsApp number to their contacts, one number at a time. Now, people simply can scan the QR code a business displays on its storefront, product packaging or receipt to initiate a chat.

Scanning a QR code will open a chat with an optional pre-populated message created by the business to start the conversation. With the app’s messaging tools, businesses can quickly send back information such as their catalog to get the conversation going. To start using a QR code, businesses can follow these quick steps, WhatsApp said.

Expansion in Catalogs features

WhatsApp had launched the "catalog feature" for businesses, which use the "WhatsApp Business app" to share information about their products and services in 2019.

The Facebook-owned app said, to make it easier for people to discover products, it is making catalogs and individual items available to be shared as links on websites, Facebook, Instagram and elsewhere.

If people want to share a catalog or item they find with friends or family, they can simply copy the link and send it on WhatsApp or other places as well, it added.