Conversational commerce is

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manag ...

done via various means of conversation ( live support on e-commerce

Web sites A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wiki ...

, online chat using

messaging app Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

s, chatbots on messaging apps or websites,

voice assistants An intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) or intelligent personal assistant (IPA) is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual based on commands or questions. The term "chatbot" is sometimes used to refer to virtual ...

) and using technology such as:

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ...

, speaker recognition (voice biometrics),

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to proc ...

and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...

Development

WeChat in China

During this time, in China, e-commerce via

WeChat WeChat () is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has b ...

– at its core a messaging app, but also letting merchants display their goods in mobile Web pages and via social feeds – grew strongly. By 2013 e-commerce in China had overtaken that of the U.S.

Facebook Messenger

In 2016, Facebook announced its

Facebook Messenger Messenger is a proprietary instant messaging app and platform developed by Meta Platforms. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the company revamped its messaging service in 2010, released standalone iOS and Android apps in 2011, and ...

chatbot platform, heralding the arrival of conversational commerce via the most widely used messaging app in the world outside China. More than 34,000 businesses had opened shop on Messenger by August 2017. Early cited examples of conversational commerce chatbots on Facebook Messenger include

1-800-FLOWERS 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. is a floral and foods gift retailer and distribution company in the United States. The company's focus, except for Mother's Day and Valentine's Day, is on gift baskets. They also use the name ''1-800-Baskets.com''. Their ...

with an

IBM Watson IBM Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM's DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM's founde ...

-powered chatbot/assistant, and Mexican airline

Aeroméxico Aerovías de México, S.A. de C.V. () operating as Aeroméxico (; stylized as AM), is the flag carrier airline of Mexico, based in Mexico City. It operates scheduled services to more than 90 destinations in Mexico; North, South and Central Ame ...

, whose chat platform running on

Yalochat Yalochat is an artificial intelligence platform specializing in emerging markets. It is based in San Francisco with offices in Mexico City, Mumbai, Shanghai, Bogotá, and São Paulo. Overview Yalochat enables companies to interact with their custo ...

lets customers search, book, track, or check in for flights; ask any question, using A.I. and NLP to provide answers; or pull the chatbot into a group chat.

Apple Business Chat

In June 2017,

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

announced its Apple Business Chat product, allowing consumers and businesses to message each other via the Messages app.

In September 2017

WhatsApp WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows use ...

announced the pilot of its new Enterprise solution, the first time large companies would be able to attend to large groups of customers in an approved WhatsApp solution, after WhatsApp banned earlier unofficial solutions. Companies who piloted the solution included airlines Aeromexico,

KLM KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally ''Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V.'' (literal translation: Royal Aviation Company Plc.), is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amste ...

, Latin American online travel agency Despegar and online retailer

Linio Linio is one of the leading marketplaces in Latin America, with presence in five countries and offering more than four million products. History Linio began operations in 2012 in Mexico. The company has been through various rounds of fundin ...

. Enterprise solutions for Whatsapp have been available since 2015 from a variety of third-party vendors, and though unofficial, they have been used by major companies and governments including the Governments of Colombia and Costa Rica.

Podium

In March of 2020,

Podium A podium (plural podiums or podia) is a platform used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from the Greek ''πόδι'' (foot). In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podiums can also be use ...

announced a contactless payment solution allowing local businesses to accept payments through two-way

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

text message conversations with customers. Outside of traditional instore card-present transactions, there existed only a few options for businesses to accept payments, most of which were not secure, PCI compliant, or convenient. Through Podium Payments, businesses can engage with customers and securely close sales all within the same convenient channel.

In May 2017

Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

supported basic payments in chats using bots and in April 2021, the payment 2.0 that supports payment in more than 200 countries via integration with 9 different payment providers.

Alexa and Google Assistant

Both Amazon and Google are providing APIs to enable payment via voice chat using stored payment credentials in Google Pay or Amazon Pay.

Web chat

Although, they don't have any functionalities to facilitate actual transactions within the conversation, companies like

LiveChat Software LiveChat Software ( WSE: LVC) is a customer service software company and developer of LiveChat - software as a service-based help desk software and online chat software for e-commerce sales, customer support, and lead generation. The company ...

CM.com
and LivePerson have powered live conversations between customers and live agents as far back as the 2000s, before retail businesses used messaging apps to communicate with customers.

References

{{reflist E-commerce Instant messaging