Become a PartnerStatus Page

Products and Catalogs

The WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy has specific conditions for which types of products can be sold via WhatsApp, detailed in the Commerce Policy. Businesses not complying to these rules are at risk of having their WhatsApp accounts permanently banned.

Businesses can enable Catalogs to share products with customers using Multi and Single-Product messages or showcase their products and services to their customers in the WhatsApp App, allowing them to browse through and add items to their cart without leaving the conversation, providing a seamless and convenient shopping experience.

See below how to create and use Catalogs in your WhatsApp Business Account.

Businesses in India have different regulatory requirements. Please see more information in the Business Help Center.

How to create your Catalog

1. Upload Inventory to Facebook

First, you need to upload your inventory to Facebook. You can use the API or Facebook’s Commerce Manager to do that.

Your inventory needs to be uploaded to Facebook in a catalog format — see About Catalogs for more information.

If you already have a Facebook catalog set up, we suggest that you leverage that catalog for WhatsApp commerce use cases.

If you need to create a catalog, there are two possibilities:

You can upload only one catalog per WhatsApp Business Account (WABA), but the same catalog can belong to multiple phone numbers.

We recommend giving the catalog a unique name such as "Catalog Name" & “_” & "Catalog ID" so it is easier to locate while connecting it in Step 2. Example:

Catalog Name: "Summer Collection", Catalog ID: "14556734" → Unique Name: "Summer Collection_14556734" Catalog Name: "Books", Catalog ID: "24680988" → Unique Name: "Books_24680988"

2. Connect the catalog to a WABA

Owned WABAs (accounts created via Embedded Signup)

To connect a catalog to your WhatsApp business account:

  • Go to Business Manager and select your business

  • Click WhatsApp Manager

  • Click Catalog

  • Click Choose a Catalog. From the drop-down menu, select the catalog that you want to connect

  • Click View Catalog if you want to view or manage the catalog

  • Click Connect Catalog

The catalog is connected to your WhatsApp business account. You can start sending Single Product Messages and Multi Product Messages to your customers and receive responses from them.

360dialog owned WABAs (accounts created via Classic Signup)

If the WABA is owned by 360dialog (which happens if you were onboarded using the Classic Signup Process), we will connect the Catalog to your WhatsApp Business API account for you.

You will need to first create your own Facebook catalog (if you don't have one). Then you will need to give us permission to manage it —these permissions are controlled via Business Manager and Commerce Manager as shown in the screenshot below.

Please file a support ticket to receive 360dialog's Facebook Business Manager ID and inform us of this connection.

How to share Products with Customers

You can only send a product message up until 24 hours after receiving a message from the user. If you have not received a message from the user within this time, you will need to start a new conversation by sending a Template message.

After the Catalog is created and linked to the WABA, businesses have three options to share products when chatting with their customers:

  • Single and Multi Product Messages: Interactive messages containing a selection of up to 30 items from a business’ inventory.

  • Multi-Product Template Messages: Template messages containing information about up to 30 products from your ecommerce catalog, organized in up to 10 sections, in a single message.

  • Catalog Links: Messages containing catalog thumbnails and a link to their entire product catalog.

  • Catalog Messages: Free-form messages containing a button that, when tapped, displays your product catalog within WhatsApp.

  • Catalog Template Messages: Template messages containing a button that, when tapped, displays your product catalog within WhatsApp.

1. Single and Multi Product Messages

Both Multi-Product Messages and Single Product Messages are types of interactive messages.

2. Catalog Messages

Catalog Messages is not available in India.

Catalog messages are free-form messages that allow you to showcase your product catalog entirely within WhatsApp. Catalog messages display a product thumbnail header image of your choice, custom body text, a fixed text header, a fixed text sub-header, and a View catalog button.

Once you have your inventory connected, use the WABA API to send this type of message. Use the /messages endpoint with the following parameters:

Properties

Sample Request

{
  "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "16505551234",
  "type": "interactive",
  "interactive": {
    "type": "catalog_message",
    "body": {
      "text": "Hello! Thanks for your interest. Ordering is easy. Just visit our catalog and add items to purchase."
    },
    "action": {
      "name": "catalog_message",
      "parameters": {
        "thumbnail_product_retailer_id": "2lc20305pt"
      }
    },
    "footer": {
      "text": "Best grocery deals on WhatsApp!"
    }
  }
}

3. Multi-Product Template Messages

Multi-Product Message templates can be used to open marketing conversations, meaning you can start a conversation using this template. See Multi-Product Template Messages.

4. Catalog Link Messages

Businesses can send a link to their entire product catalog by assembling a wa.me link and including it in a standard text message.

When sending a text message, businesses can use the optional preview_url set to true to have the message render a set of product catalog thumbnails of any URL in the message body string.

To assemble wa.me link, append the business's business phone number, including country code, to the end of the following string:

https://wa.me/c/

For example:

https://wa.me/c/15555455657

If you disable the catalog, wa.me links to your catalog, as well as the View catalog button that appears when you send your catalog link in a message will display an Invalid catalog link warning when tapped.

5. Catalogs Template Messages

Catalog templates are marketing templates that allow you to showcase your product catalog entirely within WhatsApp in the fisrt interaction. See Catalogs Template Messages.

Catalogs and Carts

Businesses can display their catalogs on the chat thread, on the business profile, and share catalog links with customers.

Shared WABAs created with Integrated Onboarding can enable or disable the shopping cart and the catalog using the Partner API. If the WABA is on OBO (On Behalf Of) model, please file a support ticket and we will enable it for you.

Get WhatsApp Commerce Settings

GET https://hub.360dialog.io/api/v2 /partners/{partner_id}/clients/{client_id}/channels/{channel_id}/whatsapp_commerce_settings

Request Example

curl --request GET --url https://hub.360dialog.io/api/v2/partners/partner_id/clients/client_id/channels/channel_id/whatsapp_commerce_settings --header 'Accept: application/json' --header 'Authorization: '

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "1866604260365799",
      "is_cart_enabled": false,
      "is_catalog_visible": false
    }
  ]
}

Update WhatsApp Commerce Settings

POST https://hub.360dialog.io/api/v2 /partners/{partner_id}/clients/{client_id}/channels/{channel_id}/whatsapp_commerce_settings

Request Example

curl --request POST --url https://hub.360dialog.io/api/v2/partners/partner_id/clients/client_id/channels/channel_id/whatsapp_commerce_settings --header 'Accept: application/json' --header 'Authorization: ' --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data '{ "is_cart_enabled": true, "is_catalog_visible": true }'

Request Body

{
  "meta": {
    "developer_message": "Whatsapp commerce settings successfully updated",
    "http_code": 200,
    "success": true
  }
}

Catalogs

When enabled, the catalog storefront icon and catalog-related buttons appear in conversation and business profile views:

When the catalog is disabled, the storefront icon and catalog-related buttons will not appear in any views and the catalog preview with thumbnails will not appear in the business profile view.

By default, the catalog will be off. To turn on the visibility of your catalog within the WhatsApp chat thread and your business profile to showcase your products, use the Update WhastApp Commerce Settings endpoint described above.

Carts

By default, customers can add a product to their cart, or amend quantities directly from the list or product details page. When enabled, cart-related buttons appear in the conversation, catalog, and product details views.

When it is disabled, customers can see products and their details, but all cart-related buttons will not appear in any view.

Shopping Cart Experience

After viewing products, a customer can add them to their shopping cart and send that cart to a business. For the purposes of commerce on WhatsApp, a shopping cart:

  • Is unique to a person/business chat thread in a specific device: Only one cart is created per chat thread between customer and business and carts do not persist across multiple devices. Once a cart is sent, the customer can open another cart with the business and start the process again.

  • Has no expiration date: The cart persists in the chat thread until it is sent to the business. Once sent, the cart is cleared.

Customers can add up to 99 units of each single catalog item to a shopping cart, but there is no limit on the number of distinct items that can be added to a cart.

Once a cart has been sent, no edits can be made. Customers can send a new cart if they need new items, or would like to change their order. Businesses cannot send carts to customers.

Empowering Catalogs

Meta has revolutionized the online shopping experience launching the first End-to-End shopping experience in partnership with JioMart powered by using Catalogs. The combination of integrations allows people in India to browse through JioMart's catalog, add products to their cart and pay to complete purchases, all within WhatsApp.

How to implement in your use case

We've described below the tools used in this use case, so you can adapt and implement them in your Business to streamline your processes.

We are directly partnering with Meta to gain access to their beta programs and actively contribute to the development of a better product.

Please note that certain beta features may only be available for numbers in specific countries. If you're interested in participating in our beta programs, kindly get in touch with our Support team.

It is also important to note that the JioMart use case is very specific and this end-to-end integration was assembled exclusively for them, with some features that are still not available to beta programs. We are waiting for an ETA from Meta and will share more details soon.

  • Share Catalog with the user: Any business can send a link to their entire product catalog by assembling a wa.me link and including it in a standard text message. For that, please refer to our documentation above to enable catalogs. The JioMart Catalog also contains Product Categories, Top Deals, and a search button. These are the features we're waiting for an ETA from Meta. Soon we will be able to share more information about them. However, it is already possible to add various products to your Catalog, since there is no limit on the number of products to showcase (even though we recommend keeping it below 100 items to improve the user experience while shopping until Categories are released).

  • Confirm the user's address for delivery: Address Messages are currently available as a beta program for India and Singapore businesses. We will share more details whenever it is released for other regions. However, you can mimic the case for user's location by using interactive messages or by using other location-based services.

  • Share billing options with the user: JioMart receives payments through WhatsApp Payments API. This feature is available only for India businesses using the 360dialog WhatsApp Business API with phone numbers only from India. This is also available for Singapore businesses on a different beta. If you are eligible and wish to take part in any beta program, please reach out to our team. Nevertheless, you can still generate payment links for your clients and include the link in a standard text message with buttons.

PreviousWABA Policy EnforcementNextIndia Businesses: Compliance for Commerce

Last updated