Facebook plans to take on Amazon with new shopping app
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| Image Source: Google |
After making inroads into Indias
payment sector via Whatsapp, Facebook is eyeing a larger piece of the country
fast growing e-commerce market where the worlds largest retailers Amazon and
Walmart are gearing up for a direct faceoff. Facebook
closely-held Instagram is claimed be working on a new Shopping App of its own.
Along with this user will also be able
to purchase those items from within the App. The company has not yet revealed
the launch timeline of the app. The report claims that app is still development
phase.
The social media giant is in talks with several brand and business to list
on Facebook Marketplace, according to two people familiar with the discussion.
It will begin testing business to consumer transaction on the marketplace this
month ahead of soft launch planned for june.
Facebook will build more tools for business to upload products and manage inventory and orders and will also add payments to it by the end of this year, the other person said. For now, Facebook will start with directing consumers to seller pages or websites.
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Presently Instagram has more than 25 billion business account and
out of this 2 billion are advertisers. By making a standalone app the company
aims to offer a dedicated position to the popular activity on Instagram.India online retail sector is expected to grow dollar 27 billion this year
after registering sales worth dollar 19.6 billion in 2017.
While Walmart is getting closer to acquiring a majority stake in Indias largest online marketplace Flipkart, Amazon has committed to invest dollar 5 billion in its India operations.
Therefore,
Facebook Marketplace is available in 70 countries and has more than 800 million
people visiting each month to buy and sell goods.