WhatsApp on Tuesday announced that it is bringing a new shopping feature called carts on its platform for millions of businesses and shoppers globally including in India. With carts, people can browse a catalog, select multiple products and send the order as one message to the business.

"This will make it simpler for businesses to keep track of order inquiries, manage requests from customers and close sales," WhatsApp said in a statement.

Globally, more than 175 million people message a WhatsApp Business account every day and more than three million people in India view a business catalog each month. 

Using carts is easy. Simply find the items you want and tap "add to cart.” Once your cart is complete, send it as a message to the business.

"Carts are going live around the world today – just in time for the holiday season," WhatsApp said.

"Carts are great when messaging businesses that typically sell multiple items at once, like a local restaurant or clothing store," it added.

The need for digital tools to shop has increased manifold during the pandemic.

In fact, according to a recent survey, 76% of adults in India said, "I am more likely to do business with/purchase from a company that I can contact via messaging than one that I cannot.”

Earlier this month, WhatsApp had released some new updates including improvements to Wallpapers, the launch of a search feature for Stickers, and a new animated sticker pack.

Wallpapers on WhatsApp saw four major updates - custom chat wallpapers, additional doodle wallpapers, an updated stock wallpaper gallery, and the ability to set separate wallpapers for light and dark mode settings.

"Make your chats personal and distinguishable by using a custom wallpaper for your most important chats and favourite people, and you never need worry about sending the wrong message in the wrong chat ever again," the company said in a statement.