Catalogue & orders
How the catalogue works
Section titled “How the catalogue works”Your products live in a Meta product catalogue, the same kind you would manage in Meta Commerce Manager. whatbot connects that catalogue to your WhatsApp Business Account, and then lets you manage it from the Catalog page in the sidebar. Customers see the products inside WhatsApp, can add them to a cart, and send you the cart as an order.
A WhatsApp Business Account has one catalogue. If your workspace has numbers in more than one WhatsApp Business Account, the Catalog page manages the catalogue behind your default number.
Set up a catalogue
Section titled “Set up a catalogue”Open Catalog. Until a catalogue is connected, the page shows No catalog yet with two choices.
Create catalog makes a new, empty catalogue and connects it to your WhatsApp number in one step. Give it a name and you can start adding products straight away. If the catalogue is created but can’t be linked automatically, you’ll see Catalog created, but not connected with the reason.
Connect existing catalog is for a catalogue you already run in Meta Commerce Manager.
- Click Connect existing catalog.
- Pick your catalogue from Your catalogs. If whatbot can’t list them for you, type its ID instead. In Commerce Manager it’s under Catalogs, shown below the catalogue’s name, and it’s a number, not the page link.
- Click Connect catalog. The page switches to your products.
Add products
Section titled “Add products”Click Add product. A spreadsheet-style grid opens, one row per product. Add more rows with New product.
| Column | Notes |
|---|---|
| Images and videos | Upload an image (JPG, PNG, WEBP or GIF, up to 8 MB), or choose or URL and paste a public https:// link. Required. |
| Title | Required. Up to 200 characters. |
| Description | Optional. |
| Website link | Optional. The product’s page on your site. |
| Price | Required. Pick the currency next to it. |
| Sale price | Optional. |
| Facebook product category | Optional. |
| Condition | New, Refurbished or Used. |
| Availability | In stock or Out of stock. |
| Status | Show or Hide the product in your catalogue. This doesn’t affect whether it can be sent in a chat. |
| Brand | Optional. |
| Content ID | Optional. Your own SKU for the product. Left blank, one is made from the title. It can’t be changed later. |
The footer counts the rows that are ready. Click Upload products. Rows without a title, an image and a price are not uploaded. They stay in the grid, marked, so you can fix them and upload again.
Edit or delete a product
Section titled “Edit or delete a product”The Products tab lists up to 200 products with their image, Content ID, Status, Availability and Price, and has a search box. Click a row, or the pencil, to edit the name, price, currency, availability, image link, description and product page link. The SKU is locked once a product exists. The bin icon deletes a product from the catalogue. This can’t be undone.
Send products in a chat
Section titled “Send products in a chat”- Open the chat in the Inbox.
- Click Product in the composer toolbar.
- Search, then tick the products to send. You can pick up to 30 in one message.
- Click the send button. It counts your picks, for example Send 3 products.
One product goes as a single product card. Several go as a product list the customer can browse and add to a cart. The product is sent from the number the chat is on.
Product messages are ordinary replies, so they only send inside the 24-hour window. Outside it, the Product button is greyed out. Send an approved template, wait for the customer to reply, and then send products.
Orders
Section titled “Orders”When a customer sends a cart from your catalogue, the order arrives as a message in their chat: a New order card listing each product with its price, quantity and line total, the order total, and any note the customer added. Like any customer message, it opens the 24-hour window, so you can reply straight away.
Every order is also listed on Catalog → Orders: the customer, the products ordered, the note, the total and when it was placed, newest first. Chat opens that customer’s conversation. The tab shows the most recent 200 orders. Use the refresh button to load new ones.
The total is worked out from the price and quantity of each item the customer sent. If whatbot can’t match an item to a product in your catalogue, the order shows the item’s Content ID instead of its name.
Manage the catalogue over the API
Section titled “Manage the catalogue over the API”You can push products from your own store, ERP or spreadsheet, and read orders back, with your API key. See the Catalog API.