Facebook wants to expand its WhatsApp messenger for companies. However, this also means that functions for business accounts will cost fees in the future. When the service has to be paid for and what it will cost is still unclear.

WhatsApp has been around for a while in a business Version, as a stand-alone app, and for two years also as an integrable API. According to a blog post by the messenger, more than 175 million messages are sent to business accounts every day. New functions should now ensure even more interactions and appear in the coming months.

Shopping for a fee The shopping area will expanded. With WhatsApp, however, it has so far only been said that customers “have more opportunities to find out about available products and also to buy them directly via chat”. It should be easier to integrate the function into existing corporate solutions. They also want to work directly with more providers of such solutions. However, Facebook immediately warns in a second blog post that this could disrupt the end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp.

For business customers, Facebook already has a list of services that are partners . “We will also offer a new option for companies with which they can manage their WhatsApp messages via hosting services. These services are to be offered by Facebook,” the blog post said. Small businesses should be able to make sales and inventory easier. It doesn’t get any more specific.

As a shop, you can create a product catalog directly in Messenger, from which customers can order and give