How to take orders on WhatsApp

Four ways to take an order

Where chat orders go wrong

Chat works at five orders a day. At thirty, three problems tend to show up. An order gets buried under newer messages and ships late. Two customers order the last piece because nothing counted the stock. And at the end of the day someone matches UPI screenshots against a bank statement.

One order list for chat and website

The fix is to let the chat start the order and let a store finish it. The customer asks about a product on WhatsApp, gets a link, and checks out on your store. The order then sits in the same list as every other order, with the address, the items and the payment status attached.

On KartMojo this runs through your own AiSensy or Twilio account. Catalogue sync, order updates and the shared inbox are on every plan. On paid plans an AI assistant answers product questions from your live prices and stock, and sends a pay link that opens your store's checkout. Customers cannot pay inside WhatsApp itself.

Stock

The WhatsApp Business app's catalogue does not count stock, so sold-out items stay visible until you hide them. When the order is placed on a store, stock goes down at checkout and a sold-out product cannot be ordered.

Cash on delivery

Cash on delivery orders taken in chat are the easiest to lose money on, because nothing checks the address before the parcel leaves. Confirm each one before you ship. A store can also check whether you deliver to the customer's pincode before the order is placed.

Order updates

Customers ask where their order is on the same chat they ordered from. Sending the confirmation, the dispatch note and the tracking link on WhatsApp cuts most of those questions. On the WhatsApp Business API these are template messages, and Meta has to approve each template before you can send it.

What it costs

The WhatsApp Business app is free. The API is billed per message: Meta charges for each template message delivered, in three categories called marketing, utility and authentication, and your provider adds its own fee. Rates and free allowances change, so read Meta's page and your provider's page on the day you sign up. KartMojo does not charge per message. The WhatsApp ordering page explains the setup.