Tango Offers Shopping on Its Messaging Service

MAY 12, 2015 9:00 AM

Tango, a peer-to-peer mobile messaging service, planned to announce on Tuesday it would start offering shopping services. Its catalog includes most of what is sold by Walmart and Alibaba, a total of two million products.

“There’s no question that messaging is the new gateway to the Internet,” said Eric Setton, Tango’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “We’re the way to connect people that know each other.”

Facebook, Twitter, Google and many others might push back some on that statement, but Tango’s move underscores the way that mobile messaging systems have become increasingly popularmethods of content distribution and commerce.

Facebook has in fact broken out messaging as a its own function in mobile versions of the social network and last month announced ways independent developers might build applications that work inside that communications system.

Tango, which last year received an investment of about $250 million from Alibaba, may be making the strongest move yet. The shopping application involves a button on the screen that opens access to a wide range of products.

People can browse the catalog in a number of ways, create personal selections for friends to browse, buy items, or message the details to friends. Payments are handled through credit card information stored in Tango. The company appears more interested in gathering customers, and data on them, rather than profiting directly on commerce. It is taking no commission on the mobile sales.

Out of the gate, it is quite a range of goods. In a brief test of the service, from Walmart I found a casket with Yankees logos on the lining, for $2,399. There was also a $4.58 box of honey nut breakfast cereal. Alibaba had women’s dresses and antifreeze, among many products (things like guns and alcohol are not available.)

Should this method of commerce catch on, it could have profound implications for brands that make their own mobile apps, hoping to attract shoppers. “Would you keep a Levi’s app and a Best Buy app, and an app for every merchant, or would you go to one place where it’s all there?” Mr. Setton said. “I’m biased, but I think this interface rules.”

Maybe, but only over a limited empire. The catalog will initially be available only in the United States. Tango has about 300 million registered users, about one-quarter to one-third of whom are in the United States. It seems to be the first such messaging commerce app for the American audience, though Japan’s LINE and WeChat of China offer commerce capabilities.

Tango, which started in 2009, has previously offered video calling, games and photo sharing, among other things. Tango’s technology enables it to send a lot of data at low cost to the company, offering free services to customers.

As with other advances in messaging, Tango’s move does raise questions. There are already email and browsers on phones, but somehow what used to be simple texting is gaining in ways that those pre-existing, well-known methods could not.

Because messaging was originally designed for mobile devices, Mr. Setton says he believes its look and feel make it easier to navigate a lot of information on a tiny screen. And messaging feels more immediate.

“Feeling faster is a big deal,” he said. “Even if it’s just a half a second, perception matters.”