An order came in at 8:47pm on a Tuesday, sitting between a family group and a supplier asking about delivery. You saw it, thought "I'll do it in the morning", and replied "noted". By morning it had been pushed down by forty messages. The customer waited until eleven, then bought the same thing from somebody else, and never told you why.
That is the shape of the loss. You do not see it happen. There is no empty shop to look at, no bounced cheque. The order simply stops existing, and the customer does not complain. They just stop asking.
Most shops running on WhatsApp lose somewhere between one and four orders a week this way. At an average ticket of KSh 1,500, that is somewhere north of KSh 100,000 a year going quietly out of a phone you are holding in your hand.
By the end of this guide, every order that arrives on your phone will end up in one of five places, you will be able to see at a glance which orders are unpaid, and you will be able to answer "how much?" in two seconds without typing. All of it on the free WhatsApp Business app, on Android.
(The app and features here are the same everywhere WhatsApp Business runs. Only the payment and delivery details in the templates are Kenyan, swap the M-Pesa lines for your own if you are outside Kenya.)
What you are actually missing on normal WhatsApp
If you are taking orders on the green WhatsApp everybody has, you are working without five things that already exist and cost nothing.
- Labels. Coloured tags on a chat, so a conversation can be marked paid or ready and stop living in your memory.
- Catalogue. Your products with photos and prices inside WhatsApp, so "what do you have?" is answered with one tap instead of nine photos.
- Quick replies. Saved messages you fire with a keyword, your location, your prices, your till number.
- Greeting and away messages. Automatic replies so a customer messaging at 10pm gets an answer at 10pm.
- A business profile. Hours, address, category, and a link customers can tap from your Google listing, your status, or a poster.
None of this is paid, none of it needs a website, and installing it takes about ten minutes. The green tick verification you have seen elsewhere is a separate thing for large brands, it costs money, and you do not need it. Do not let anyone sell it to you.
Decide the number question first, because it is hard to undo
WhatsApp Business is a separate app, but one phone number can only be on one of the two. So you have two paths, and this is the one decision in this guide you should not rush.
Path A, convert your current number. Install WhatsApp Business, sign in with the same number, and let it migrate. Your chats and groups come across. Every customer who already knows your number keeps working. Nothing to announce.
Path B. A second line for business. Buy another line, install WhatsApp Business on that number, keep personal WhatsApp on the first. Costs the price of a SIM and the airtime to register [CHECK: current SIM cost].
| Path A: same number | Path B: second line | |
|---|---|---|
| Customers you keep | All of them | Only those you tell |
| Can you switch off at 9pm? | Not really | Yes, put the phone down |
| Staff can answer it | Only by holding your phone | Yes, hand over the line |
| Effort to start | Ten minutes | A week of telling people |
Choose A if you are the only person answering and your number is already on your signboard, your vehicle and your Google listing. Choose B if anyone else serves customers, or if you sell things people order at midnight and you have started to resent your own phone.
Whichever you pick, before you install anything: open WhatsApp, go to Settings → Chats → Chat backup, and back up to Google Drive. Then check it says today's date. People lose four years of customer conversations at this exact step.
Now install WhatsApp Business from the Play Store and set the number up. When it asks, allow it to migrate.
Fill the business profile in one sitting
Tap the three dots, then Settings, then your business name at the top, then Business profile. This screen takes six minutes and it is what customers see before they decide whether you are a real shop.
- Name: exactly what is on your signboard, matching your Google listing. Not "Nyota Bakery, Order Now 🎂".
- Category: the closest one to what you actually sell.
- Description: what you sell and the one thing that decides the sale. "Fresh bread daily from 6am. Custom cakes with 48 hours' notice. Delivery within Eldoret town, KSh 200."
- Address: your real one, with the pin placed on your door. If you have no shop, leave it out rather than putting your house.
- Hours: honest ones. If you answer messages until 8pm, say 8pm.
- Email and website: if you have no website, put your Google Maps listing link or your Facebook page.
Then get your own link. It is your number with no plus and no leading zero:
https://wa.me/2547XXXXXXXXPut that link in four places today: your Google Business Profile booking link, your Instagram and Facebook bio, your WhatsApp status, and as a printed QR code at the counter. That link is the difference between someone thinking about calling you and someone already typing.
The profile is the shopfront. The next three sections are the shop, the catalogue that answers the price question, the five labels that make sure no order dies, and the saved replies that give you your evenings back.
Build a ten-item catalogue, not a fifty-item one
Settings → Business tools → Catalogue. Add ten items. Not everything you sell. The ten that make most of your money, plus anything people ask the price of constantly.
The rest of this guide is paid
You have read the first 26 sections. The remaining 53 cover the steps, the templates and the mistakes that cost people a week. Buy it once and it stays in your account for good.
Signing in keeps your guides available on any device.