WhatsApp Commerce Feature

Available on Transact package.

Meta recently introduced new functionality whereby businesses can present and showcase their products to their customers via the WhatsApp channel. This new capability allows for the following:

• You can upload your inventory (contained in a catalogue) to your Facebook Business Manager Commerce Platform.

• You can connect this catalogue to your WhatsApp Business Account (WABA).

• Once the catalogue is uploaded, you can use the new Single- and Multi-Product message types to present products to your end-users:

  • Single-Product Messages: Messages display a single item from your business's inventory.

  • Multi-Product Messages: Messages allow for a selection of up to 30 items from your business's inventory.

• End-users can interact with your business to get more information about your products.

Clickatell now supports this WhatsApp Commerce feature via our Chat Flow application!

How does it work?

You must first upload your inventory onto the Facebook Business Manager Commerce Platform (see how). Once uploaded, they can use the new Multi- and Single-Product message types to present your inventory to end-users who will have the option to add items to a cart and submit the order to your business.

The images below indicate how a catalogue is presented to your end-user in WhatsApp.

Linking a product catalogue to Chat Flow

After you've set up your catalogue in the Facebook environment, you can reference it from within Chat Flow as part of a workflow.

We've introduced a new Multi-Product node in Chat Flow that the flow-builder can configure to display up to a maximum of 30 products from your catalogue to the end-user at a time (a limitation enforced by Meta). The flow-builder can use the Multi-Product node multiple times in a flow, as long as all the products they refer to are from the same catalogue.

To 'link' the catalogue with the node, you have to add the Catalogue ID to the node (created when uploading the catalogue onto Facebook Business Manager).

Product IDs (to reference the specific products from the catalogue) can be added in two different ways:

• Dynamic - the flow-builder can use an API call to fetch the product IDs from your management system before using the Multi-Product node and use these IDs as variables in Chat Flow.

• Predefined - the flow-builder can manually add the product IDs to the node (i.e., "hard-coded").

Note: In Phase 1, we've only implemented the Multi-Product node. In Phase 2, we'll also implement a Single-Product node.

Receiving the "Cart Order" or "Ask a Product Question" messages in Chat Flow

As part of the WhatsApp Commerce implementation, Chat Flow have to support two new message types. The "Checkout" message and "Ask a Product Question" message.

"Checkout" message

When the end-user submits their cart from within WhatsApp, Chat Flow receives this new message type that contains additional content like the SKU (product ID), quantity, and price per item as part of the payload. Chat Flow then calculates the order total to be used when the end-user makes a payment via our Chat 2 Pay services. Once Chat Flow receives a successful payment status back from Chat 2 Pay, we'll pass the order confirmation to you for processing and fulfilment.

"Ask a Product Question" message

End-users can engage with you and ask questions about your products. As part of your "WhatsApp Commerce onboarding" process, Chat Flow will create a placeholder "Ask a Product Question" flow, allowing the flow-builder to build out the experience and behavior you want. For example, you may want to direct these questions to your FAQ bot first, or you may prefer adding a Chat Desk node and transferring the end-user to a live agent to answer product-related questions.

For both of the above, the flow-builder can build out and personalize the end-user experience according to your requirements.