But now Facebook has announced the launch of in-app purchasing and hosting services for its Zipper-owned messaging app, the world's most popular messaging app, to increase its revenue while consolidating the company's e-commerce infrastructure.
It is believed that Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for 19 billion, but so far it has not been able to make it its source of income.
But now with the new services, businesses will be able to sell their wares through Facebook Shops within the WhatsApp.
The online store was launched in May this year with the aim of integrating shopping into all Facebook apps.
Facebook is now stepping into the cloud computing sector and allowing companies using its messaging tools to store their messages on Facebook servers.
Matt Edema, WhatsApp's chief operating officer, said in an interview that the introduction of the shopping tool will begin this year, with the messaging hosting service available in 2021.
He added that the hosting service will be provided free of cost to attract new customers who are willing to pay for its enterprise tools, charging 5 to 9 cents per message.
WhatsApp already has millions of small businesses connecting with their customers.
According to Matt Edema, 175 million people currently contact a business on the WhatsApp daily.
He said chats from an organization would be told about the new hosting service, that they were being stored elsewhere and that they were not protected by the app's end-to-end encryption.
It should be noted that Facebook does not currently charge any fee for those who use WhatsApp Business App, but for some business messages, it does charge a fee.
For example, companies charge a fee for sending a boarding pass or e-commerce receipt to a customer.
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