How to Create WhatsApp Ecommerce Store: A Step by Step Guide in 2024

Imagine how great it would be if you could buy the products you need without navigating through complex website designs or browsing through long lists of items. 

Businesses all over the world are trying to streamline their sales processes to provide a smooth customer experience by engaging their customers online, promoting their products or services, and compelling them to complete the transactions. 

The internet has become saturated with innovative value-based sales techniques and business models, making it challenging for startups to secure a market share for themselves. 

However, over the past few years, WhatsApp, which started as a communication app, has evolved into a full-fledged sales and marketing platform, letting you use it to drive revenue, 

By setting up a WhatsApp e-commerce store, you can utilize WhatsApp as a sales platform to engage your prospects from the initial point of contact till they become your customer. 

That being said, in this article, I’ll go over what a WhatsApp e-commerce store is and how you can set yours up to boost your bottom line. 

What is a WhatsApp e-commerce store?

As the name suggests, WhatsApp e-commerce store is an aspect of conversational commerce that lets you use communication apps (in this case, WhatsApp) to facilitate sales engagement and empower your customers to make purchasing decisions. 

Through conversational marketing, you attract the attention of your customers with eye-catching promotional messages and foster communication by delivering meaningful content at the right time. And what other platform is better at that than WhatsApp? 

A WhatsApp e-commerce store is just like any other online shopping platform but instead of waiting for customers to come to you, like a website, you can use WhatsApp to identify new customers by sending them marketing messages informing them about your offerings.

It is the best channel for you to reach out to your customers and make use of conversational marketing methodology to encourage them to take the next step. 

So, if you are a new business considering your options to deliver quality sales experience and personalized engagement, then WhatsApp is the ideal platform for you.

Advantages of using WhatsApp for running an e-commerce store

Running an e-commerce store on WhatsApp comes with its unique advantages. Below are some of the benefits you get from selling on WhatsApp:

Access to international audience

Being a free-to-use platform, WhatsApp is used by billions of people around the world for everyday communication. On top of that, WhatsApp is supported in over 100 countries, giving you the perfect blend of a global user base to target as potential customers. 

Ease of usability

WhatsApp is an easy-to-use communication app where your customers can sign up quickly by just providing their phone number. Also, the user-friendly UI and minimalistic features of the app allow them to make the most of it.

This usability aspect of WhatsApp makes it the number-one choice among its users. Moreover, WhatsApp enables you to connect with your customers in real-time, something that other marketing channels lack. This way, you can stay in contact with your customers 24/7 and keep your offerings in the back of their minds.

Single channel for everything

WhatsApp is a complete solution that lets you manage multiple stages of your sales pipeline. For example, you can use WhatsApp to reach out to your audience, promote your products, and compel them to make a buying decision. 

It serves as an all-around platform that is equipped with the necessary features to drive engagement and close more deals effectively. 

Secured communication

WhatsApp provides end-to-end encryption to all your messages, ensuring no information is leaked. This stringent data security policy of WhatsApp allows your customers to freely chat with you without worrying about potential data breaches. 

How to set up your WhatsApp e-commerce store?

After learning about what WhatsApp e-commerce store is and why it is so important for you to incorporate it into your sales model, let’s explore how you can set it up for your business. You can use either the WhatsApp Business App or the WhatsApp API to kickstart your WhatsApp e-commerce store. 

Create an e-commerce store using the WhatsApp Business App

WhatsApp Business App is a component of WhatsApp Business Platform that allows you to utilize WhatsApp for your business communications and boosting revenue.

It is a simple mobile app that you can get started with within minutes and begin selling on WhatsApp directly from your phone. Here’s how:

Download the Whatsapp Business App from the App Store or Play Store based on your device. After you are done installing, sign in to the app using your phone number. Make sure this number doesn’t already have a WhatsApp account active on it.

After that, you have to create your WhatsApp Business profile. To do that, navigate to the Profile section by clicking the Menu button → Business Profile. Here, click the Edit button and enter basic information about your business, such as its name, description, profile photo, email, and website URL. Once you are done, click Save. 

Next up, creating a WhatsApp product catalog. A catalog gives your prospects a clear idea about what you offer and they can use it to browse through them to find the one that fits their needs. To create a product catalog, go to the Catalog option and click Add New Item.

Lastly, you can share your catalog via links on WhatsApp or other social media channels to showcase your offerings and allow your prospects to view all your products effectively. 

With the WhatsApp Business App, you can create Broadcast lists and engage your customers using bulk messages. It is a pretty simple and cost-effective way to set up your WhatsApp e-commerce store to start selling your products over WhatsApp.

Set up your e-commerce store via WhatsApp API

Although the WhatsApp Business App is a great way for you to sell on WhatsApp if you have a limited number of customers, it has many restrictions when it comes to medium or large businesses. 

This is why, WhatsApp launched its API platform to allow you to personalize your WhatsApp marketing as per your business needs and interact with your contacts the way you want. 

Having said that, setting up the WhatsApp API requires a decent amount of technical expertise and you also need a frontend communication platform to use the WhatsApp API. But that doesn’t mean you can’t set it up on your own. 

Follow our in-depth guide on how to set up the WhatsApp API and integrate it with Zixflow to manage your WhatsApp efforts from a unified platform. You can reach out to us if you need any assistance with setting up the WhatsApp API.

Once you have linked Zixflow with the WhatsApp API, you also have to link your product catalog with your WhatsApp account in Zixflow to start sending custom catalog messages to your prospects.

To do that, head over to the E-commerce tab within the WhatsApp account settings in Zixflow. From here, you can create your product catalog if you haven’t yet by following the steps mentioned on the screen.

If you already have your catalog ready, you have to assign Zixflow as the Catalog Partner in your Meta Business Manager. 

For that, navigate to Business Manager Settings → Data Sources → Catalog → Partner tab. Here, click the Assign Partner button and select the Business ID option. In the field, enter Zixflow's Business Manager ID (833839258439950) and click Save. 

Once that is done, copy the Catalog ID from the Business Settings Page, go back to Zixflow, and paste it into the field under the “Enter Facebook Catalog ID” heading. Click the Connect & Refresh Products Now button.

That’s it! Now you can send your catalog via WhatsApp messages when running promotional campaigns. Simply select the “Product Catalog” template for your message at the time of setting up your campaign to send it directly to your customers.

Boost your bottom line and scale your business with the WhatsApp e-commerce store 

Overall, WhatsApp is an excellent channel that lets you interact with customers, market your products, and provide post-sale customer support. 

It gives you the ability to build a successful business by actively looking for qualified leads and nurturing them with different kinds of content until they become your customers. 

Although WhatsApp serves as a communication channel between you and your customers, you also need a dedicated sales and marketing platform to store your customers’ data and keep track of how your WhatsApp efforts are going. 

For that, you can use Zixflow, a next-gen marketing, sales, and business growth platform that is designed to help you implement various WhatsApp marketing strategies. Plus, with its solid automation capabilities, you can engage your customers without having to manually craft messages or keep track of when was the last time you interacted with them. 

Not just that. You can use Zixflow to enhance your WhatsApp e-commerce by getting started with the platform for free. So, what’s the delay? It takes a few seconds to create a Zixflow account and use it to embark on a commercially fruitful journey to scale your business.