How To Make WhatsApp Work For Marketplaces

A marketplace conversation will end up on WhatsApp eventually.

We see it in our call-tracking metrics, we hear it when we talk to our clients and we experience it when we use marketplaces ourselves. This raises an important question for a Marketplace. How do you go about deploying a WhatsApp strategy that is safe, efficient and measurable?

Existing solutions are flawed.

The most common WhatsApp solution we encounter is the use of wa.me links. These tick the efficiency box - a conversation between a buyer and seller can be started right away. But they’re not necessarily safe as it's hard for marketplaces to stop bad actors with nefarious intentions from gaining access to their sellers’ personal WhatsApp details. This is not only a security risk but it dilutes lead quality too.

The wa.me links also only offer limited measurability because the marketplace has no visibility of when sellers reply to legitimate buyers. And guess what? If a seller doesn’t respond, the buyer typically blames the marketplace, not the unresponsive seller.

We have a solution that addresses these flaws.

It allows Marketplaces to facilitate the introduction between a buyer and a seller while gaining valuable analytics. As a Marketplace using our solution, you will be in a position to:

• Link specific conversations to an exact listing.
• Measure how many buyers start conversations from any listing.
• Capture a buyer’s WhatsApp number without needing to ask for it.
• Monitor the response time of sellers.
• Nudge unresponsive sellers or move lead to another seller.
• Protect sellers from bad actors.

If this solution sounds like it might be a fit for you, check it out for yourself by clicking on this link (imagine it’s in a listing on your own marketplace) to see what it's like to start a conversation as a buyer. One of our team will be playing the role of the seller on the other end of the conversation and will be happy to answer any questions you have!