~/whatsapp-ordering
Orders that arrive already written.
A WhatsApp order button is a link on your own page that opens WhatsApp with the item, the size and the price filled in. The customer taps once. You get a message you can act on instead of a conversation you have to conduct.
It is on every tier I build, starting at TZS 450,000 or KES 22,000. Below is how it works, and where the free option is genuinely the better answer.
What happens when they tap it.
01
They tap the item, not a phone number.
Every product and every service on the page carries its own button. The customer is not opening a chat and starting from nothing; they are pointing at the exact thing they want.
02
WhatsApp opens with the message already written.
Item, size, colour, price, quantity, and the page it came from — filled in before they type a word. The link does that, not a bot. Nothing has to be installed and nothing new has to be learned, by them or by you.
03
The order lands in the chat you already read.
Same app, same notification sound, same phone. No dashboard to remember, no second inbox that quietly fills up, and no login you will have lost by March.
04
You reply about delivery, not about price.
The five questions that used to eat the morning are answered on the page before the message is sent. What is left is the conversation that actually closes the sale.
The five questions, answered before they are asked.
Every shop I have built for was answering the same five things all day: how much, what sizes, what colours, is it in stock, do you deliver here. None of those are conversations. They are facts, and facts belong on a page where a customer can read them at eleven at night without waking you up.
Put them on the page and the message you receive changes shape. It stops being is this available and becomes I want this one, where do I send the money. That is the entire trick, and it is why the button matters more than anything else on the site.
When you should not pay me for this.
The free WhatsApp Business catalogue
Use it if you sell under about twenty things.
It costs nothing and it works. What it will not do is let somebody search, filter by size, or see what is in stock — and nobody outside WhatsApp can find it at all. It has no address you can print on a flyer or hand to a supplier. If you are small and staying small, stop here and keep your money.
A bio link with your number on it
It is a phone number wearing a hat.
The customer still has to describe what they want from memory, so you still get 'is this available' forty times a day. It also belongs to whoever runs the tool, and the page dies the day they change their pricing.
The delivery apps
Fine as a second channel. Ruinous as the only one.
They bring you customers you would not have found, and they keep a percentage of every order forever, plus they own the relationship. The point of your own order button is not to replace them; it is to have somewhere to send the customers who already know your name.
A chatbot that answers for you
Not what I would sell you first.
Most shops asking for a bot do not have a bot problem. They have a catalogue problem: the information the customer needs is not written down anywhere, so it gets asked for one message at a time. Write it down first and most of the questions stop.
What it costs.
The button itself is not a line item. It comes with the page, and which page you need depends on how much you sell.
| If you sell | You need | TZS | KES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to about thirty things | Page One | 450,000 – 650,000 | 22,000 – 32,000 |
| More than that, with sizes and stock | Order Website | 1,000,000 – 1,600,000 | 48,000 – 78,000 |
| Several branches, or bookings as well | The Complete Site | 2,500,000 – 4,000,000 | 120,000 – 195,000 |
Hosting and your domain are in the price for the first year, registered in your name. Half up front, half when it goes live and works.
The questions I get about this.
- Do I need WhatsApp Business, or does my normal number work?
- Your normal number works. WhatsApp Business is free and worth having for the away message and the labels, but the order button does not depend on it either way.
- Does the customer need anything installed?
- Only WhatsApp, which they already have. The button is an ordinary link. It opens the app on a phone and WhatsApp Web on a laptop.
- What does the message actually say when it arrives?
- Something like: "Hi, I want to order the Kitenge wrap dress, size M, TZS 45,000, quantity 1." The wording is yours and you see it before it goes live.
- Can it take the payment too?
- Not on the one-page tier, and usually you should not want it to. Most shops here close on M-Pesa or Tigo Pesa in the chat, which costs nothing. Card checkout is a named module I quote separately, and I will tell you if I think you do not need it.
- What if I change my prices every week?
- Send me the new ones and they are up. Price and stock changes are included for the first year on every tier, and they are a message, not a support ticket.
- How long does it take?
- Faster than anywhere else you will ask. A single page is days rather than weeks, a full order website is under a week, a complete site is a couple of weeks, and a full business system is about a month. While somebody else is still sending you a proposal, yours is live.
- Do I own the website and the domain?
- You own both. The domain is registered in your name, not mine, and the first year is included in the price. I will not put your site on my subdomain and call it yours.
- How do I pay?
- M-Pesa, Tigo Pesa, Airtel Money or bank transfer. Half to start, half when it goes live. I do not start without the first half, and that applies to everybody without exception.
Also: everything I build, the full price list, and what a website costs in Tanzania or Kenya.