HELLO ROBOT

BOTS THAT CHAT WITH YOU AND HELP YOU BUY STUFF ARE THE NEW RAGE IN E-COMMERCE

- ABHIK SEN

FOR THOSE OF us who love buying fresh vegetables from the neighbourhood store daily, the Covid-19-induced lockdowns were a stressful time. Using WhatsApp as a notepad to make lists of things one needed to buy— which many people were prone to do—one had to first send the list to the grocer on the messaging app and hope that he checked it before the fresh produce was sold out; next, one had to wait for the grocer to get back with the bill and then make the payment via an e-wallet or UPI. Sometimes, one would even have to call the grocer to confirm that the payment was made, and then wait for the delivery to happen. The stress then led to many daily shoppers, like a relative based in Kolkata, to make—horror of horrors—weekly purchases.

After the lockdowns were lifted, the daily shoppers were back at their favourite neighbourhood grocery stores. My relative, a retired corporate executive, too, went back to his old routine, but a service he started using recently is causing some disruption in his habits. The service in question is JioMart on WhatsApp, which helps him order groceries and provisions in an interactive and seamless manner. And the convenience has convinced him to give his daily morning trips to the local grocer a miss.

But grocery is just one way you can use the messaging app. According to Ravi Garg, Director of Business Messaging-India, at Meta, you can also buy tickets for the Bengaluru metro on WhatsApp, and scan the e-ticket to board the train; and even book an Uber cab! These types of transactions on messaging apps are called conversational commerce, a term believed to have been coined by Chris Messina, the inventor of the hashtag, in 2015.