How to set up a WhatsApp catalog & sell inside chat in India

WhatsApp commerce is the ability to show products, take orders, and collect payment — all inside a chat. For Indian D2C brands and local retailers, it's a high-converting channel because the customer never leaves WhatsApp. This guide covers how to set up the commerce flow.

Setting up the catalog

The WhatsApp catalog lives in your Business Account — you register it, add products (name, price, image, description), and it becomes referenceable in conversations and flows. On AiConva, register the catalog in Flows → Catalogue with the same catalog ID you created in Meta Commerce Manager, then add the products you want flows to reference.

Product cards in chat

Once the catalog is set up, agents (or automation flows) can send a product card inside a conversation — image, price, and a buy button. The customer taps to view details and can place an order without leaving WhatsApp. This is the single highest-converting sales motion on the channel.

Native WhatsApp Payments

In India, WhatsApp supports native UPI payments — a customer can pay inside the chat via their UPI app, and the order status updates from sent to paid automatically. This eliminates the friction of payment links and dramatically improves conversion for COD-averse customers. Read the WhatsApp Payments guide for the full setup.

Pairing catalog with flows

The most effective commerce setups use a chatbot flow to qualify intent ('looking for X?'), present the relevant catalog item, and hand off to a human for the close. This combines automation (speed, 24/7) with human judgement (high-value sales) — the pattern covered in our chatbot automation guide.