Selling on WhatsApp Business: 7 best practices

In West Africa, a large share of sales is closed on WhatsApp. Yet many businesses still use it like a personal messaging app. The free WhatsApp Business app offers tools designed for selling. Here are seven best practices to get the most out of it.

1. Complete your business profile

Logo, clear description, opening hours, address, link to your website: it's the first thing a new customer sees. A complete profile reassures before the very first message.

2. Publish your catalogue

Sharp photos, prices, a short description: the catalogue saves you from sending the same pictures ten times and lets customers choose at their own pace.

3. Set up quick replies

Prices, delivery options, payment methods: save your most frequent answers and send them in two taps. You save time and keep a professional tone.

4. Set up greeting and away messages

A customer who writes at 10 pm should know they've been heard and when they'll get an answer. An away message avoids losing a sale to silence.

5. Organise your chats with labels

“New customer”, “Order in progress”, “Paid”, “Follow up”: labels turn your inbox into a small sales-tracking tool.

6. Use status updates as a shop window

New products, customer reviews, behind the scenes: your contacts watch your status updates. Post regularly, without flooding, with polished visuals.

7. Connect WhatsApp to your other channels

A WhatsApp button on your website, a link in your posts and your ads: every channel should be able to lead to a conversation. That's exactly what we do on this site, with the green button at the bottom of the screen.

WhatsApp doesn't replace your website: it extends it. The website builds trust, WhatsApp closes the sale.

To go further, you can even connect an AI assistant that answers frequent questions for you. It's one of the projects we run within our Web development & AI team.