Shopify enables iMessage Business Chat: Connects 800k merchants to buyers

• Apple’s iMessage Business Chat expands to integrate more services
  
• Ecommerce platform Shopify will integrate the iMessage button on every Shopify store
  
• Users will be able to complete the commercial transaction on Shopify using the seamlessly integrated Apple Pay feature
  

Apple is expanding the iMessage Business Chat to allow over 800,000 merchants on the Shopify Ecommerce platform to speak directly with their customers. With the embedded iMessages button, end customers will be able to directly communicate with the store owners, allowing for a quicker mode to clarify their queries. Sellers earlier depended on Facebook’s Messaging platform for buyer communication.

Select Shopify merchants, Watch retailer Hodinkee and State Bicycle are already said to have integrated the business chat feature.

To further enable a seamless purchasing experience, users will be able to complete the transaction using Apple Pay.

Highlighting the benefits of offering real-time communication, Shopify said in a blog post, “We know that customers who engage in a conversation with a brand are nearly three times as likely to complete a purchase.”

“Live chat also creates a personal connection between a brand and the customer which builds trust and makes them more likely to come back,”, the company further added.

Apple Business Chat was launched in 2018 as a mode for consumers to communicate directly on Apple’s iMessage platform. That platform rolled out across the United States and over a dozen countries around the world.