WhatsApp Commerce — Sell Inside the Chat

WhatsApp Commerce — Sell Inside the Chat

WhatsApp Commerce lets a customer discover products, build a cart, and place an order without ever leaving the chat. It turns your WhatsApp number into a tiny storefront powered by your product catalog. This guide explains the customer's shopping experience; for the merchant side — managing orders, statuses, and notifications — see the WhatsApp Orders guide.

Plan requirement: WhatsApp Commerce (ordering, cart, COD) requires the Business plan or above. On Free and Pro, the bot answers product questions but doesn't run the ordering flow.

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What Makes WhatsApp Different

WhatsApp isn't a web page — there are no rich cards or buttons-everywhere. Botaura works within WhatsApp's native tools to keep the experience clean:

• Interactive lists — products and quantities are shown as tap-to-select lists (about 10 items at a time), not walls of text.
• Quick-reply buttons — actions like Add More, Checkout, Confirm, and Cancel appear as buttons the customer taps.
• Plain, short messages — no markdown or tables; prices appear inline (e.g. "Lawn Suit — Rs 4,500").

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The Shopping Flow

When a customer signals they want to buy — "I want to order", "mujhe yeh chahiye", or names a product — the bot starts the flow:

1. Pick a product — an interactive list shows the most relevant products from your catalog; the customer taps one.
2. Choose quantity — a 1–10 list appears; the customer taps a number.
3. Add more or check out — buttons let them keep shopping (items accumulate; the same product's quantities merge) or proceed.
4. Confirm the order — the bot shows a summary with items and total, plus Confirm / Cancel. Cancel clears the cart and saves nothing.
5. Cash-on-delivery confirmation — after confirming, the customer gets a WhatsApp template with the order number and total and a final Confirm / Cancel. If they don't respond, one gentle reminder is sent later (never spam).

The exact order statuses that follow (pending → confirmed → shipped → delivered) are covered in the Orders guide.

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Language & Off-Script Handling

• Any language — the flow works in English, Roman Urdu, Urdu script, and Hinglish; the bot replies in the customer's language.
• Questions mid-order — if a customer asks something in the middle of ordering, the bot answers it and then continues where they left off; the cart is preserved.
• Typos / unexpected replies — the bot gently re-prompts without losing progress.

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Where Products Come From

Every product shown comes from your product catalog — added manually or imported by crawling your website or connecting your store. Clear titles and prices matter: the bot matches the customer's words against your catalog to decide which products to show, so name things the way customers say them. Keep prices current, because orders and COD confirmations use those numbers.

If you run WooCommerce or Shopify, connecting your store keeps the catalog in sync automatically — see Store Integrations.

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After the Sale

• Orders — every confirmed order appears in Dashboard → Orders for you to manage and update (Orders guide).
• Customers — buyers are automatically segmented (New, Bought, Repeat, …) so you can target them later (Customers guide).
• Cart recovery — customers who start but don't finish become cart abandoners and can be nudged back automatically (Cart Recovery, Growth).

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Troubleshooting

• The order flow doesn't start — WhatsApp Commerce is Business+; confirm your plan and that products exist in your catalog.
• A product isn't offered — make sure it's active in the catalog and its title matches how customers refer to it.
• Customer didn't get the COD template — the utility template may still be pending Meta approval; the order is still created. See WhatsApp Templates.