Product Catalog in WhatsApp: Browse and Buy in the Chat
Let customers shop your store without ever leaving the conversation.
Every extra step between "I'm interested" and "I bought it" loses customers — and for a lot of shoppers, opening your website is already one step too many when they're already sitting in a WhatsApp chat with you.
A WhatsApp product catalog puts your products, prices, and photos directly inside the same chat a customer is already in, so browsing and ordering happen without ever leaving WhatsApp.
What a WhatsApp product catalog looks like
In WaSMS, a catalog isn't the native Meta Business catalog, which requires the official WhatsApp Business Platform — it's a browsable menu built from your own product data, sent as a series of cards: photo, name, price, and a short description, with quick-reply buttons under each for "more details," "check other sizes," or "order this." A customer taps through the way they'd scroll a small in-chat shop.
Setting it up
Connect the same product feed you'd use for AI for E-commerce — WaSMS reads names, images, prices, and variants from it. From there, build a catalog flow in the admin: pick which products or categories appear, in what order, and what happens when someone taps a button.
curl -X POST https://api.wasms.net/v1/catalog/sync \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-d '{"feed_url": "https://yourstore.com/products.csv", "categories": ["new-arrivals", "best-sellers"]}'
Most stores start with a small, curated catalog — new arrivals or best sellers — rather than the full inventory. A 200-item catalog is overwhelming in a chat window; a curated 10-15 items converts.
Adding products and prices
Each product card pulls straight from your feed, so prices and stock update automatically when your store does — you're not maintaining a second copy of your catalog by hand. Every card includes a product photo; see Sending WhatsApp Media for image size and format limits. If a product has variants (size, color), the flow asks a follow-up question ("what size?") using WhatsApp Buttons and Quick Replies rather than making the customer type free text.
Keep descriptions to one line. A catalog card is a hook to get a tap, not a full product page — save the detail for when they ask.
Ordering flow
When a customer picks a product and confirms a size or variant, WaSMS captures the order details — item, variant, quantity, and the customer's name and address if you don't already have them — and hands the conversation to whichever step comes next for your business: an order confirmation message (see Order Updates via WhatsApp), a payment link, or a human agent if you take orders manually.
A catalog also gives you a natural way to recover an abandoned browse. If a customer taps through products but never orders, a follow-up nudge works the same way it does for a cart left behind on your website — see WhatsApp for E-commerce: Recovering Abandoned Carts.
WaSMS itself doesn't process payments — it's a messaging and AI layer, not a payment gateway — so most stores send a checkout link (Stripe, PayPal, or their own store's checkout) as the final step, or confirm cash-on-delivery details directly in the chat.
Inventory sync
A catalog that shows a sold-out item as available creates the worst kind of support ticket — the one that starts with an apology. Sync your feed at least as often as your stock changes, or better, connect a webhook so a stock-out immediately pulls that item from the catalog or marks it "sold out" in the card.
