How to Use WhatsApp for Ecommerce: 21 Use Cases & Examples

To own your future is to seize opportunity. Make good choices. Make them consistently – Jordan Belfort, AKA The Wolf of Wall Street.

Are you ready to shake things up with the right choice and want to be present where your customers are?

Try WhatsApp for ecommerce to intensify your sales through social media. 

Why? In this competitive marketing world, as every other business is utilizing the latest technologies like WhatsApp ecommerce integration, where more than 100 billion messages are sent each day to connect globally, you cannot afford to overlook the importance of having an extra set of eyes.

So, you just need to make an obvious choice to incorporate WhatsApp ecommerce along with WhatsApp Cloud API to sell your products and automate your sales pipeline stages, thereby reaching out to a targeted wide market and soaring your brand's voice in the arena of sales.

Are you still in doubt whether WhatsApp ecommerce will be the right choice for you? No more worries. 

Today, through this article, you will embark on a quest to unleash the potential of this exceptional platform. As I'll reveal the 21 practical use cases of WhatsApp for ecommerce that will reshape your business's kismet with endless customer experiences.

What is WhatsApp ecommerce?

WhatsApp ecommerce is a two-way communication platform where you can seamlessly engage with your customers, sell your products, and use your WhatsApp ecommerce store as a WhatsApp conversational marketing platform. 

With the integrated WhatsApp ecommerce store, you can now easily send various captivating WhatsApp product catalogs to your customers, allowing them to gaze solely upon your brands. You can also apply for WhatsApp automation hacks to achieve a 360-degree customer experience with a single click, including all essential aspects such as mass messaging, order tracking, customer-led product development, retaining customers, providing ongoing customer support, generating leads, and many more.

Why do you need WhatsApp for your ecommerce store?

I've got some real-time WhatsApp business statistics that will blow your mind and show why consumers love engaging with reliable brands through WhatsApp:

• A staggering 2.2 billion users across 180 countries are waiting for you on WhatsApp.
• A whopping 175 million people per day reach out to various brands through messages.
• On average, people spend approximately 17 hours per day/month on WhatsApp.

Can you imagine the immense opportunity to connect and convert? Hah!

Now, let me break it down for you with some compelling reasons to stick with WhatsApp ecommerce only:

✅ If you want to simplify your two-way conversational process, increase your sales using customer engagement with this bandwagon and extract the most of it by retargeting your potential prospects.

✅ If you want to enhance your real-time customer service by sending relevant and updated customer support to address each query of your consumers without wasting a second.

✅ If you want to secure your ecommerce business with WhatsApp commerce policy and get rid of headaches while incorporating end-to-end encryption with two-factor authentication, tasting the success of profitability.

✅ If you want to excel in your visibility and credibility with a verified business profile and seamlessly connect with an enormous number of people worldwide to drive conversions.

✅ If you want to send captivating customized product catalogs with personalized content as WhatsApp advertising messages to give your customers an exclusive experience. 

How does WhatsApp ecommerce work?

Well, it goes back to 2018, when Meta launched the WhatsApp Business Platform, helping medium to large-level business enterprises scale their authenticity with a green tick on their WhatsApp business account. In 2019, Meta added a new shopping button to allow users to browse through product catalogs. Thanks to the integration of WhatsApp Business API for ecommerce.

Since it's WhatsApp Business API, you cannot avail its productivity through a WhatsApp Business App; rather, you need WhatsApp Cloud API and integration with a robust WhatsApp marketing and automation software like Zixflow for easier access and explore your ecommerce platform with a new dimension, be it Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace, or WooCommerce. However, my suggestion would be to have a look at the discussion of  WhatsApp Business App vs API and choose wisely.

However, you'll not be eligible and will be prohibited if you're operating an illegal business or some business verticals as mentioned below:

• Alcohol
• Animals
• Currency
• Defense
• Drugs (Except medicines)
• Gambling
• Tobacco
• Weapons, ammunition, or explosives, etc.

Now, if you're aware of the restrictions and satisfied with the productivity, you are eager to know the process of setting up a WhatsApp ecommerce store for your business. I'm adding a detailed video to give an overview of how to set up your WhatsApp ecommerce store and simplify your sales process.

What are the best examples of WhatsApp ecommerce use cases that you need to unfold?

Most Brazilian consumers interact with brands through WhatsApp, according to WhatsApp business statistics.

It has already been proven, WhatsApp has developed into a potent sales engagement tool worldwide with ecommerce integration, providing long mileage in sales. Now, let's dive deeper with real-time 21 use cases to understand how the WhatsApp marketing tool helps you nail your ecommerce business.

Launch product with user-initiated product development

To cater to a 27% lack of effectiveness in customer service, you need to apply a customer-centric selling process with WhatsApp-integrated ecommerce. Anticipate customers' needs and address their pain points by knowing exactly what they want from you.

Keeping an eye on your competitors' paths and building an approach based on "What," "Who," "When," and "Why" will help you create a user-initiated product that will aid your customers' journey. This product launching roadmap with WhatsApp eventually aligns your conversions with your brand's vision and delivers a better-than-ever customer experience.

Find products in automated mode

Like me, your customers also love to be treated uniquely and feel mesmerized. You can now give your customers the same feelings, especially with an automated choice, by letting them choose step-by-step between their likes and dislikes. 

For instance, you can give them a list of choices for products and purchases, such as men/women/kids, shirts/t-shirts, casuals/formals, white/pink, UPI/COD/EMI, etc., by incorporating a sales automation process with WhatsApp ecommerce.

Offer instant resolutions with list messages and quick reply buttons

To qualify your lead generation checklist with a 3x faster response, WhatsApp has launched new features for ecommerce using WhatsApp chatbots: list messages and quick reply buttons. 

With list messages, your customers can now pick any alternatives (up to 10 at a time), such as order status, item, and refund-related queries, switch accounts, etc., from the menu-type view without going through a numbered menu. Additionally, with quick reply buttons, your customers can connect within a blink of an eye, especially when they have to choose between two options, yes/no, view details/view menu, entire shipment/partial shipment, etc.

Warm up with personalized interactions and build rapport

Give yourself room to build a presence with personal touches, AKA personalization. Your customers, even the loyal ones, may keep quiet for longer, and there you need to send warm feelings with personalized messaging content via WhatsApp for your ecommerce business.

When your customers are ready to opt-in to your brand, you may gather detailed information such as name, phone number, and country, or you may ask them for more details, so that you can create personalized content addressing their name or adding different languages in the menu and build an empathetic relationship for selling.

Give a better experience with exclusive pre-access

If you want to create a buzz in your target audience's mind before an official launch, find the answer to “Who” and “Why”, instead of creating a “Me too” impression even if there are similarities of products between you and your competitors.

Creating a free trial or product demo, offering discounts for pre-orders, and giving beta participation rewards are some processes that you can easily do with your WhatsApp ecommerce set up to impress your sales prospects and preoccupy your conversions.

Enhance brand perception with WhatsApp Chatbots

In the crowd of sales, waiting longer for a single response feels like waiting for the next wave. You can now harness the power of advanced sales engagement AI technology like WhatsApp chatbot to block this obstacle.

To build the brand persona and enhance a buyer persona as well, this virtual assistant is available 24/7, handling services from opt-in management to acting as a smart agent routing complex queries for your customers. Needless to say, deploying WhatsApp chatbots upscales communication and uplifts customer care services by reducing response times.

Retain customers with post-purchase support

Retaining your customers with the same intensity is the toughest job than transforming your target prospects into hot leads. Because most of the time businessmen are simply passing by the need for connection while focusing more on sales conversions.

To retain your customers online, first, you have to trigger sales psychology by showing your love and care for them. You need to spend just two small words: "Thank you," "Need help?" or you may offer them a detailed refund or return policy on WhatsApp to reduce their anxiety and make them feel relaxed.

Re-engage & recover abandoned carts 

There was a time when a business had to rely on emails to re-engage its customers in the ecommerce business. And now, a revolution has happened with WhatsApp ecommerce integration, where WhatsApp has succeeded in achieving a 98.3% open rate in successful cart recovery by re-targeting them.

To use the same trick for re-capturing your lost but potential customers, you need to follow only this four-step formula:

• Target them with an exclusive offer.
• Send them a detailed video to capture their attention.
• Provide personalized assistance to address objections.
• Lastly, send them cart reminders to create urgency and close the deal.

Create FOMO on WhatsApp status

If you want to trigger urgency from pre-sales engagement to post-sale attachment, create FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) using WhatsApp status. To ramp up the FOMO vibe and propel conversions, you have to create situations by showing that people are already buying, highlighting opportunities they might be missing, or offering one-shot deals with an excited intent.

In your WhatsApp ecommerce business, FOMO marketing will allow you to create anxiety in your customers about missing out on a profitable deal or trendy fashion, which fuels their desire to take action and make purchases.

Prevent RTO with instant information

With the ecommerce industry expected to increase by 84% by 2024, the possibility of increasing RTO (Return To Origin) cannot be neglected. There is a high chance that even your loyal customer can break the agreement of purchasing by COD (Cash on Delivery) at the last moment, and you have to bear the cost of double shipping charges.

If you're using WhatsApp for ecommerce business, you can successfully reduce the RTO rate by sharing transparent and thorough product information, sending order confirmation alerts, ensuring preferred-time delivery, blacklisting customers with high returns, etc. It will give you the space to lower the losses and scale your profit on e-commerce business.

Deliver orders using live location

WhatsApp's in-built live location is truly a great feature to know your customers' whereabouts, especially when it comes to tracking orders after they are out for delivery.

From a delivery boy's perspective, sometimes it can be challenging to find customers' exact locations. And also customers can struggle to provide clear directions. To address this issue, the embedded Google Map allows your customers to share their exact location live on WhatsApp, enabling agents to navigate the route easily. It helps you to present on time with assistance and enhances your sales engagement activities.

Plugin widget and click-on-chat from your space

To start a conversation, a medium is needed, be it email, SMS, IVR calls, or anything else. Therefore, to simplify the communication WhatsApp API gives you the best option for downloading WhatsApp widgets and integrating them into your ecommerce website, allowing you to start two-way seamless conversations from anywhere you prefer. 

It is capable enough to give answers to all sales qualifying questions and thus, transform any anonymous visitors on your ecommerce website into your potential customers.

Secure confirmations from sending invoices to payment transactions

As a customer, I'll not like being treated with late confirmations or receiving vague news. The same can happen with your customers as well. To avoid this crucial situation, as a business, you should incorporate WhatsApp ecommerce.

WhatsApp has end-to-end encryption that helps you maintain the security of your customers' data. On the other hand, you can send them updated notifications of your business policies and billing information, and allow them for hassle-free payments to build rapport in sales without worrying about ending up in the "Junk folder".

Create product catalogs to smooth the experience

Imagine you've been trying to buy a pair of sneakers, and your favorite brand provides the best options for you with a list of detailed information - Amazon does the exact thing. Now, you have the same ecommerce business site, and your WhatsApp API allows you to showcase a portion of the variety on your WhatsApp Business account to drive conversions.

Additionally, you can use various WhatsApp business message templates to create your captivating catalogs and send them in bulk. Therefore, you can add these details to your product catalog to honor your customers' time and curiosity:

• Name, image, and code of the relevant product.
• A brief description.
• Pricing details.
• CTA link to take instant action.

Explore a new journey with the find my business option

To discover and explore new businesses that may cater to a consumer's taste, Meta has developed a new feature on WhatsApp called find my business within a certain geography. No matter whether you have a small or medium-sized business, your customers can find you quickly by accessing their live locations.

Although it's currently available in some countries like the U.K., Colombia, Mexico, and Indonesia, we can expect it in our area too. If you have a restaurant business or a general shop, this feature has the potential to be a game-changer for your e-commerce store.

Win over customers with WhatsApp contest

"Contest," the word alone is capable enough to create a thrill in your customers' minds because they have nothing to lose, rather they can enjoy and win prizes. By leveraging WhatsApp ecommerce, you can move beyond limits and engage your customers with creative quizzes and competitions.

This WhatsApp contest attracts your customers to bind with your brand while accessing the sales engagement best practices. Moreover, when people are discussing with their dearest ones, it will help scale your presence and get a better reach in one go to drive conversions.

You can efficiently remove this friction by simply firing out customized review templates on your WhatsApp Business account. It will help you understand the intent of your customers, your lacking and improving points, and get social proof by catering to all sales engagement questions.

Generate leads and drive sales

“It’s about being a driver of the market, not simply being market-driven”-- Seth Godin.

With WhatsApp API integration for your ecommerce business, you can access 360-degree exceptional features like WhatsApp marketing messages, WhatsApp chatbot, QR codes, labels, infographics, and website URLs to promote your brand's exclusivity using WhatsApp and nurturing them as well.

With this continuous process, ultimately, you can end up attracting new potential prospects or transforming your existing potential prospects into hot leads. Either way, the result is once and is availing the desired ROI.

Design the unboxing experience

I still remember my childhood days when I was excited to see what was in the Christmas gifts and packages. Surprisingly, the same feeling is still within me, and maybe in your customer too. Simply age doesn't matter, but the thrill of unfolding shopping boxes one by one and touching that ultimate product excites your customer as well.

Using WhatsApp API integration, you can apply this sales engagement strategy to prompt your customers with unboxing videos, share them within your WhatsApp business groups, and make your customers a product guide into your marketing campaign to showcase the real-time experience and attract sales.

Collect customer feedback or reviews

To analyze the customer experience with your brands, it is needed to get a transparent visualization. For this, feedback and reviews can go along with your path to collect the quest. Sometimes people are not ready to make the effort to go to your website and write their perception from purchasing to applying in reality.

Engage customers with FAQs

Ecommerce businesses generally spend a longer time managing customer queries one by one, from the sign-up process to product details, to make the ultimate deal. You may also have an FAQ landing page to overcome objections in sales.

However, there are a few customers who may prefer to visit your FAQ page and bother to satiate their curiosity or address their objections. To overcome this hindrance, WhatsApp integration in your ecommerce business is a beneficial option for you as this allows you to utilize chatbots to tackle their needs and provide satisfaction with automated menus.

Expedite marketing efforts with WhatsApp ad campaigns

Last but not least, WhatsApp marketing campaigns are promotional advertisements for your brands that you can utilize to interact with interested customers and float with them on the WhatsApp chat thread headers to give your ecommerce business a new dimension. You may already know that from unicorns to big billion brands, all can play this shot to sought-after competitions. 

For example, Maggie, an international brand of soup and noodles, used a WhatsApp marketing campaign named "Chef in your kitchen" to connect with all ages from every kitchen and achieved 3 points in brand awareness with sending 200,00 messages in the first eight weeks.

How Zixflow will help you to implement your WhatsApp ecommerce strategy?

“Innovation is the distinction between a leader and a follower”-- Roxanne Emmerich.

User-friendly WhatsApp marketing tool

Zixflow is a WhatsApp service provider that offers a smooth integration of Cloud API, and now you can use it as a WhatsApp ecommerce API with industry-standard security practices. To restore your hard-earned money, Meta will bear the cost for you from hosting to software updates. 

Additionally, you can easily segment your broad audience into smaller groups based on demographics using broadcasting lists and leverage the benefits of this user-friendly WhatsApp CRM integration with chatbots and marketing template messages. Not only that, but you can also effortlessly measure and comprehend the WhatsApp business analytics data of your WhatsApp marketing campaigns after sending business messages in bulk, allowing you to shape your marketing strategies accordingly.

Industry-leading support around-the-clock 

If scaling is your concern, Zixflow will help you get rid of the extra burden in terms of workload, managing your clients' data, workflow automation, and analyzing data of the campaigns by giving you instant, direct, hands-on support to execute every bit of your WhatsApp marketing campaign ideas and skyrocket your sales process like never before.

Zixflow isn't just for WhatsApp marketing. It's your central hub for managing messages and uses AI wizards to streamline tasks. If you're curious about all its features, including the centralized inbox and AI wizard, don't miss its overview video.

Make the right decision to fly high

As a business, it is up to you to analyze every corner of possibilities and make an informed decision. 

In your scalable e-commerce business, you need to communicate with prospective prospects, nurture your existing leads, research areas of improvement, and then execute your spellbound strategies with a sales enablement environment.

But the process is not ending here. What's next? 

Just take a small step to start your journey with Zixflow, make your WhatsApp e-commerce integration as a social CRM to fly high.