I chanced upon some interesting Whatsapp chat groups for bidding and buying stuff while in Bali.

There’s this Whatsapp group where people can bid for organic, fresh fish. Another for farm-grown organic chicken. There’s another where you can bid for delicious hand-made tempeh (a fermented soybean cake for cooking). 

How it works: seller posts limited time sale with photos on the Whatsapp chat group. Buyers bid. Best price gets the goods. Buyer send your address and the deliveryman collects the money upon delivery. No messing around with payment gateways like Paypal. No special Uberized service for last mile delivery - the seller delivers himself, fresh to your door the next day. No middleman platforms and all the associated BS.

I was fascinated. I heard of people starting bare bones ecommerce stores using nothing more than an Instagram account. Of course these are later renditions of the blogshop. And I’d seen live bidding using Facebook livestreaming. But never saw a chat group as an ecommerce ‘store’ before.  

That’s a crazy low bar for entry. All you need are some premium quality goods in limited sale quantities, and a bunch of contacts who are interested in your products and willing to bid for them. And Whatsapp.

Messaging apps are definitely more popular than social media apps like Facebook and Instagram. Even less digital savvy folks who don’t use Facebook would use messaging apps. The exponential growth of chat apps over social media is testament to how ubiquitous messaging apps are to our lives now. With so many in the world on chat now, and hungry for more, imagine the potential reach and ease of selling to anyone, anywhere via chat. 

Gone are the days you need a website on Shopify or Squarespace, or an account on Etsy. Just sell as you would chat. F**king amazingballs. ?

Is chat the future of ecommerce?

? Day 23 of the #200wad challenge.