How to connect WhatsApp to your Shopify store

Three ways, three different jobs

Adding WhatsApp to a Shopify store can mean three quite different things: a button that opens a chat, the free WhatsApp Business app on a phone, or the WhatsApp Business Platform, which connects your number to other software. They are not better or worse versions of the same thing. Each fits a different stage of a shop.

1. A WhatsApp button on your store

The quickest start is a link in the form https://wa.me/ followed by your number in international format, without the plus sign or spaces. Put it in the header, the footer, the contact page or next to the Buy button. Many free Shopify apps add a floating button that does the same.

The button only opens the conversation. The messages still arrive on whichever phone uses that number, so everything else depends on how you answer them.

2. The WhatsApp Business app

The free WhatsApp Business app is enough for many small shops. It adds a business profile, a catalogue, quick replies, an away message and labels to sort chats.

• It is tied to one number and lives on a phone, with only a few linked devices.
• Two people cannot easily share the work: there is no assignment, and no record of who replied.
• It knows nothing about your Shopify orders: to answer "where is my parcel?" you look the order up by hand.
• Order updates have to be sent by hand, one by one.

3. The WhatsApp Business Platform

The WhatsApp Business Platform is Meta's official interface for software. You do not use it directly: you connect your number through a provider, and the provider's software becomes the place where you read and answer.

This is what makes a shared inbox possible: several people answer from the same number, each conversation has an owner, and the order appears next to the chat. It also allows automatic messages, such as an order confirmation or a shipping update.

• You need a Meta business account, and Meta reviews the display name of your number.
• A number used on the platform cannot be used in the WhatsApp app at the same time in the usual set-up. Many shops use a new number, or move the existing one across.
• You can reply freely for 24 hours after the customer last wrote to you. After that, and for any message you start, you need a message template approved by Meta.
• Meta charges for template messages, per message, at prices that depend on the category and the country. Check Meta's current price list before you plan automatic messages.
• Messages you start, such as order updates, need the customer's consent to receive them on WhatsApp.

How to choose

If one person answers a handful of messages a day, the button and the free app are a sensible start. When two or more people answer, when "where is my order?" takes up a good part of the day, or when you want order updates to go out on their own, the platform through a provider is the step that saves time.

Whatever you choose, tell customers when you answer, and keep the same answers on every channel: a customer who writes on WhatsApp and then by email should not get two different replies.