WhatsApp Payment: All-in-One Guide For Your Business

With a presence and an active user base in 180 countries, WhatsApp has become one of the most used messaging apps around the world. As its popularity soared and with new features constantly rolling out, brands have also started using it to promote their offerings and boost their sales engagement. 

In order to let you make the most of the channel, Meta introduced WhatsApp Payments, a revolutionary option to enable you to complete purchases straight from the app. 

You no longer have to redirect customers to external payment getaways to streamline the checkout process, without having to make them jump through multiple hoops just to complete their order. 

Having said that, in this guide, I will explore the advantages of WhatsApp Payments, how businesses can utilize this feature, and how you can set it up for your business. So, let’s jump straight into it!

What is WhatsApp Payments?

Usually, when you send a marketing or an abandoned cart message, if you want customers to finish their purchase, you have to redirect them to a secured gateway where they can enter their details and place an order. 

However, it is too long of a process with multiple variables involved that can hinder customers from successful checkout. For example, the gateway takes too long to load, there are some downtime issues, or seeing a unique payment gateway for the first time can make customers hesitant about filling in their information. 

So, to optimize this entire process and enhance the shopping experience across WhatsApp, WhatsApp Payments was launched. It lets you finalize orders within the app via numerous payment options including, cards (credit or debit), net banking, and UPI (Phonepe, Paytm, and Google Pay).

It sounds like an amazing feature for businesses that use WhatsApp marketing as a primary channel to promote their products and drive more sales. For example, if a customer asks for your catalog, browses through your offerings, selects a product that fits their needs, and finally, pays for it without leaving the app. 

This streamlined shopping experience ensures you don’t lose leads across the stages of the sales pipeline. That being said, let’s take a look at some of the advantages of WhatsApp Payments. 

Why should you leverage WhatsApp Payments?

On top of better chances of converting leads into paying customers, WhatsApp Payments offers numerous other benefits. It provides a unified feature to help you optimize the most important part of the sales funnel, the transaction. 

Having said that, here are some great advantages of implementing WhatsApp Payments into your WhatsApp outreach efforts: 

Seamless payment process 

With WhatsApp Payments, you can ask for payments straight from your WhatsApp messages, making it a streamlined experience for customers to complete the process. This way, you can get rid of the need to send customers to a webpage or get an app, resulting in better conversions and lowering the number of lost prospects during the checkout. 

Better security

Since WhatsApp prides itself on being a secure platform, why not take advantage of this aspect to ask users to finish their payments from a secured platform? 

Taking payments on WhatsApp greatly reduces the worries of customers about their information being leaked. Plus, the dynamic security of UPI and other platforms makes sure that the payments are encrypted with all the necessary security. 

Quick updates

As you can send instant messages on WhatsApp about updates regarding the status of payment, your customers can effectively monitor their payments and know whether it was successful or not. 

Additionally, you can make it so that you also receive a real-time notification every time a customer completes a transaction, allowing you to keep track of recurring payments and send timely reminders. 

Eliminating additional expenses 

Since WhatsApp Payments allows you to receive funds directly from WhatsApp, there is no need to integrate an external gateway for the same. This way, you can save on any usage or transaction charges you (or your customers) might have to incur. 

How to get started with WhatsApp Payments?

WhatsApp offers two kinds of messaging platforms: WhatsApp Business and normal WhatsApp. Since both businesses and everyday users can utilize this feature, I will tell you how to set it up so you can send and receive money through WhatsApp. 

Ways to receive payments via WhatsApp

The process of setting up WhatsApp Payments on a mobile device is super simple. 

Start by launching the WhatsApp app and heading to the Settings option by clicking the three dots at the top right corner. After that, tap on the Payments option. 

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Click on the “Add new payment method” option and choose between a bank account or a credit card. I suggest going with a bank account option. Next, you have to select your bank from the ones available in the app.

On the next screen, you need to verify your phone number by entering the OTP sent by WhatsApp. Then you have to let WhatsApp access your banking information and check everything is in order. Lastly, complete the setup process by clicking the ‘Done’ button.

How can you send payments using WhatsApp?

On top of receiving the payment, you can also use WhatsApp Payments as a channel to send money to your friends or family. To do that, open the WhatsApp chat of the recipient you want to send the money to. In the right corner of the message bar, you will see a currency symbol based on your country. Tap on that icon. 

On the next screen, fill in the amount you want to send and following that, confirm the transaction by entering your UPI PIN (if you set up UPI as your payment method.) One thing to remember here is that you need to have a payment method added beforehand to send money through WhatsApp. If not, you can follow the above instructions to set it up within minutes. 

Once your payment is successful, you will get a message informing you about the same.

Steps to set up WhatsApp Payments for business usage

Till now, I have told you about how WhatsApp users can send and receive money among themselves. Next, let’s see how you can use it to streamline the checkout process for your business. 

Step 1: To start off, you have to make sure whether your business is eligible to use this feature. For that, you have to make sure you have signed up for the WhatsApp Business Platform and verified your business on Facebook Business Manager. 

Furthermore, you also need a payment gateway to serve as a middleman between WhatsApp and your customers. These gateways can be PayU or Razorpay. 

Step 2: After that, you have to link this payment gateway to your Business Manager. As mentioned before, the gateway platform will automatically manage your payment requests and make sure you keep on getting payments from customers safely. 

Step 3: Once you have set up your Facebook Business Manager and a payment gateway, now it’s time to link them together. Head to the Business Manager and navigate to the payment configuration options. Here, you have to click on the New Configuration button to integrate a gateway with your account. 

Step 4: After doing that, the system will ask you to choose a gateway between Razorpay, PayU, or UPI. You can select a platform where you have an existing account and click on the Next button. 

Step 5: Following that, you will be asked to select the WhatsApp Business account you want to connect with the gateway along with some other business information like configuration name, the industry you operate in, and an optional purpose code. 

Step 6: Lastly, confirm the changes by using your Facebook account password when prompted. After your changes have been saved, you will be sent to the payment gateway that you have selected, and you will have to complete the integration with WhatsApp by giving the necessary access. 

Businesses that can make the most of WhatsApp Payments 

Having a payment collection directly integrated with your marketing platform can significantly streamline the checkout processes, ensuring your customers can efficiently complete transitions. 

No matter which kind of business you are or the industry you work in, if you have implemented WhatsApp into your sales engagement strategies, WhatsApp Payments can come out as a game-changer for you. That being said, here are some of its use cases:

E-commerce/ Retail

Imagine, a customer going through your WhatsApp catalog and selecting some products. In place of them being sent to your website or a payment page, they can pay for the complete order then and there – with no need to exit the WhatsApp app. 

This seamless shopping experience drives business success by increasing overall conversions and allows you to deliver quality customer satisfaction, streamlining the customer journey to get quicker sales. 

In the same way, retail stores can use WhatsApp Payments to sell more products without asking customers to be physically present at your store. Additionally, for customers ready for checkout in person, you can use WhatsApp as a payment option. They can simply scan your QR and pay for their purchases.

Financial institutions

For banks and financial institutes, where repeating transactions are frequent, WhatsApp Payments can serve as a great choice to optimize these transactions. Plus, you can automatically send reminders with complete payment buttons to make sure you collect them on time. 

Travel agencies

Travel agencies or booking portals can enhance the booking process by receiving instant payments and sending confirmations in real time. Whenever a user books a tour, hotel, or flight, you can send the entire journey descriptions right on WhatsApp, and ask them to finalize their trip within a unified conversation. 

This way, you can eliminate the difficulties associated with changing multiple means of travel, thereby providing enhanced customer engagement to get more conversions.

Subscription-based services

Monitoring when a payment is due or when a subscription ends is a tedious process for both service providers and customers. However, WhatsApp allows you to send timely updates about when a service is going to expire, asking customers to pay in advance to enjoy continuous operations. 

For example, service providers like monthly passes, gyms, software companies, or freelancers can leverage WhatsApp Payments to make sure customers complete the transactions on time. 

Ready to get started with WhatsApp Payments?

Including WhatsApp Payments into your business operations, allows you to collect payments and process transactions in a much more efficient manner. 

In addition to optimizing the shopping experience, it lets you reduce the drop-off rates of customers, ensuring you don’t lose prospects at the final touchpoint. 

Whether your offerings include products, services, or recurring transactions, WhatsApp Payments is the perfect solution to elevate how your business processes payments, leading to an improved bottom line. 

On top of that, unified messaging tools like Zixflow further streamline your communication by allowing you to send automated reminders at scale. With Zixflow, you can send WhatsApp product catalogs, and integrate them with WhatsApp Payments to encourage quick conversions. 

Sign up for a free 7-day trial and see the platform in action yourself!