WhatsApp Orders — Sell Directly in Chat

WhatsApp Orders — Sell Directly in Chat

With Botaura's WhatsApp Commerce feature, your customers can browse your product catalog, build a cart, and place orders — all within a WhatsApp conversation. Cash-on-delivery built in, with automatic Confirm/Cancel buttons.

Plan requirement: WhatsApp Orders requires the Business plan or above.

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How Customers Place Orders

When a customer messages something like "I want to order", "mujhe chai chahiye", or mentions a product name from your catalog, the order flow begins:

Step 1: Product Selection

The bot sends an interactive product list showing up to 10 products from your catalog. The customer taps on the product they want.

Step 2: Quantity

The bot asks how many they want — shown as an interactive list (1 to 10). The customer taps their quantity.

Step 3: Add More or Checkout

Two buttons appear: "Add More" and "Checkout".

• Add More — goes back to product selection (items accumulate in the cart)
• Checkout — proceeds to order confirmation

If the customer adds the same product again, the quantities merge (e.g., 2 + 3 = 5 units).

Step 4: Confirm Order

The bot shows a summary with all items and the total, with "Confirm" and "Cancel" buttons.

• Confirm — the order is created
• Cancel — the cart is cleared, no order is saved

Step 5: COD Confirmation

After confirming, the customer receives a WhatsApp template message with the order number and total, plus two quick-reply buttons:

• Confirm — order status moves to "confirmed"
• Cancel — order is cancelled

If the customer doesn't respond within 6 hours, a reminder is sent automatically (one reminder only — we don't spam).

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Order Statuses

Every order follows this lifecycle:

• Pending — order created, waiting for customer's COD confirmation
• Confirmed — customer confirmed via COD buttons. Ready to ship.
• Shipped — you marked it as shipped. Customer gets a WhatsApp notification.
• Delivered — you marked it as delivered.
• Cancelled — customer or you cancelled the order.

Valid Transitions

From	Can Go To
Pending	Confirmed, Cancelled
Confirmed	Shipped, Cancelled
Shipped	Delivered
Delivered	(Final state)
Cancelled	(Final state)

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Managing Orders

Go to Dashboard → Orders to see all orders:

• Filter by status (Pending, Confirmed, Shipped, Delivered, Cancelled)
• Click an order to see details: customer name, phone, items, quantities, prices, total
• Update status with one click — the customer is automatically notified on WhatsApp

Source Badges

• WhatsApp — order placed through WhatsApp conversation
• Website — order ingested from your online store via the Store API

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Off-Script Handling

If a customer sends something unexpected during the order flow (a random question, a typo), the bot handles it gracefully:

• At any step, off-script messages get a gentle re-prompt without losing progress
• The cart is preserved — nothing is lost if the customer gets distracted
• If the customer asks a question mid-order, the bot answers it and continues the flow

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Product Catalog

Orders pull from your Product Catalog (Dashboard → Products). Make sure your products have accurate names and prices. The bot shows up to 10 products in the interactive list, filtered by relevance to the customer's message.

Products can be added manually or imported automatically when you crawl your website.

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Admin Notifications

When a new order is placed, you receive a notification in the dashboard. The notification includes the order number, customer name, and total. You can also set up reverse webhooks to get notified on your own server.

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WhatsApp Status Notifications

When you update an order's status (e.g., mark as Shipped), the customer receives a WhatsApp template message with the new status. These are utility templates — they work even outside the 24-hour service window.

If the template hasn't been approved by Meta yet, the status still updates but the customer won't receive a WhatsApp notification. You'll see a notice in the dashboard about this.