Shopify and WhatsApp Integration - How it works!

The integration of WhatsApp in Shopify offers numerous advantages and opens up new opportunities for businesses.

By integrating WhatsApp in Shopify, you can optimize your communication and interaction with customers and potential buyers. Instead of switching between different applications, you can communicate with your customers via WhatsApp directly from the Shopify platform, taking advantage of the popular messenger service.

With the integration of WhatsApp in Shopify, you can centralize your communication and bring all relevant information together in one place. This makes managing customer communications and orders more efficient, and gives you a comprehensive overview of interactions with your customers.

You can also set up automated workflows to send specific actions or notifications via WhatsApp. This enables faster and more effective communication, both in customer support and order processing.

In this article, you'll learn how to successfully integrate WhatsApp with Shopify to optimize your business processes and work more efficiently.

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What is Shopify?

Before we delve deeper into the integration of WhatsApp with Shopify, it's important to give an overview of Shopify itself. Shopify is a leading e-commerce platform that allows businesses to create and manage an online store.

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Shopify offers a variety of features and tools that enable businesses to run their online business successfully. Here are some of the most important features of Shopify:

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Store creation: With Shopify, you can quickly and easily create a professional online store without the need for extensive technical knowledge. You can choose from a variety of design templates and customize your store.

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Product management: Shopify allows you to manage products, offer product variants, monitor inventory, and maintain product descriptions. You can also sell digital products and services.

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Payment processing: Shopify provides you with integrated payment processing that lets you accept payments from customers securely and easily. Various payment methods are supported, including credit cards, PayPal, and other local payment options.

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Order management: You can efficiently manage orders, print shipping labels, update order status, and communicate with your customers. Shopify also offers integrations with shipping service providers to simplify the shipping process.

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Marketing and sales: Shopify offers tools for search engine optimization (SEO), creating discount promotions, managing customer reviews, and more to market your online store and increase sales.

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Mobile support: Shopify provides mobile apps that let you manage your store from anywhere. You can check orders, update inventory, and communicate with customers via chat features.

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The integration of WhatsApp extends Shopify's functionality by providing an additional communication option used by many people around the world.

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Shopify and WhatsApp integration: benefits and use cases

Integrating WhatsApp with Shopify offers numerous benefits and opens up a wide range of use cases for businesses. Here are the most important aspects you should consider:

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Efficient communication and better customer experience: By integrating WhatsApp with Shopify, you can simplify your communication across channels and provide a convenient way for your customers to contact you. Since WhatsApp is a widely used messaging platform, you can quickly answer customer queries, share information, and provide support, resulting in an improved customer experience.

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Central data storage and automated workflows: The integration enables central storage of customer data and communication flows in Shopify. You have all relevant information in one place and can set up automated workflows to optimize processes and respond promptly.

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Team collaboration and project management: Linking WhatsApp with Shopify facilitates team collaboration. Team members can share information, assign tasks, and track project progress. This strengthens team communication and improves efficiency in project management.

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Sales and customer retention: The integration of WhatsApp in Shopify gives you the opportunity to directly address potential customers, send offers and make the sales process more efficient. The personal atmosphere of WhatsApp allows you to build a close customer relationship and respond individually to the needs of your customers.

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Event communication and customer support: When organizing events, you can use WhatsApp to communicate with attendees, send invitations and share details. In addition, the integration enables effective customer support via the popular messaging platform.

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Integrating WhatsApp with Shopify opens up numerous opportunities to improve communication, collaboration, and efficiency in your business. From efficient customer communication to automated workflows and optimized team collaboration - the combination of both platforms adds value to your Shopify store.

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How to link Shopify with WhatsApp?

There are several ways to integrate WhatsApp into Shopify. We will now briefly introduce these to you.

‍Possibility1: Independent implementation
If you have in-depth programming knowledge, you can set up the integration independently. However, this requires access to the WhatsApp API interface. However, this is only available to selected companies. So if you own a large and well-known e-commerce company and have the necessary resources to implement it, you can contact Meta Platforms, WhatsApp's parent company, and request access to the WhatsApp API interface.

‍Possibility2: Shopify agency
Another option is to hire an all-inclusive Shopify agency to provide this service. These companies will handle the linking of WhatsApp and Shopify for you. However, these companies like to charge hourly rates in the range of business consultants. For example, with one of the largest providers (ESHOP-Guide), packages start at €2,399 excluding additional services. And because of the Shopify focus of these agencies, the WhatsApp connection is rather a side issue and accordingly not equipped with all features. For example, you cannot send WhatsApp newsletters. Moreover, you will not get a central inbox with these agencies. So you have to manually manage other messaging channels like Facebook, Instagram, email and SMS.

‍Option3: Mateo as WhatsApp API provider
‍Theeasiest and cheapest way to integrate WhatsApp and Shopify is via a professional third-party provider like Mateo with appropriate WhatsApp API access. With Mateo you can use all the features: You can do WhatsApp newsletter marketing, provided your customers have given consent to receive messages. In addition, Mateo 's central inbox integrates various other messaging channels besides WhatsApp, such as Facebook, Instagram, email, SMS and Google Business Chat. You can also significantly improve your Google reviews through automated review management and integrate over 6,000 other apps into Mateo's communication software aside from Shopify. Instead of several thousand euros, our software is available to you for as little as 79€ per month. With Mateo, WhatsApp and Shopify are linked via the Zapier software. You can find out how this works in the following paragraph!
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Mateo, Zapier and Shopify integration diagram — Thanks to Mateo and Zapier, you can integrate WhatsApp with Shopify and many other apps. Without the WhatsApp Business API interface, linking is not possible.

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Here you can find an overview of all applications that can be linked to Mateo through Zapier. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or book a free consultation appointment directly.

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Integrate and use WhatsApp and Shopify with Mateo and Zapier

A short digression: What is Zapier and how does it work?

Zapier is a powerful software tool that allows automating recurring tasks between different applications. With Zapier, you can connect over 6,000 apps and create workflows without requiring extensive programming skills. This automation saves you time and resources by eliminating manual tasks and allowing you to seamlessly share data between different platforms. Zapier supports a wide range of apps and services, giving you the ability to share data between your favorite tools to make your workflows more efficient. You can automate various actions such as sending emails, entering data in spreadsheets, sending notifications in messaging apps or scheduling social media posts. Zapier thus allows you to focus on more important tasks by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks. A particularly interesting feature is the ability to send automated WhatsApp messages when predefined events occur in other software apps.
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Logos of software applications supported by Zapier — Zapier supports the linking of over 6,000 software applications

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Requirements for the WhatsApp - Shopify integration

There is an access to the WhatsApp API interface, through Mateo's professional messaging tool
You have a Shopify account that is connected to your business processes
You have access to a Zapier account with permission to edit zaps
You have formulated WhatsApp message templates for the intended use (e.g. an order confirmation), submitted them to Meta and got them approved

Requirements not met? We will be happy to support you! Simply write to us via our web widget or arrange a free consultation appointment.
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Tutorial: Create Shopify and WhatsApp integration

All requirements met? Then you can start linking WhatsApp, Mateo and Shopify
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Log in to Zapier.
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Create a new "Zap" with the button in the left corner.
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Select Shopify as "Trigger" if you want to send a WhatsApp message when certain events occur in Shopify (e.g. when an order is placed) or as "Action" if you want to perform an action in Shopify when you receive WhatsApp messages.
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Accordingly, select your WhatsApp Business API provider as "Action" (e.g. Send WhatsApp message template "Order confirmation") or as "Trigger".
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Confirm the new Zap and make it live.
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Congratulations! Fully automated WhatsApp messages are now sent. For example, customers receive an order confirmation and shipping information via WhatsApp for each new order.
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Procedure of sending an automated WhatsApp message — Example of the process of sending a WhatsApp message automated with Mateo. The trigger here is a new order via Shopify.

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Other advantages of Mateo

Mateo has much more to offer than just the integration of WhatsApp in Shopify. Our customers particularly appreciate the following advantages:

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Central user interface

In addition to WhatsApp Business API, Mateo bundles many other communication channels such as email, Instagram, Google Business Chat, SMS or Facebook Messenger in a central inbox. On the intuitive and clear user interface, you will find various helpful tools for particularly efficient customer communication. For your customers, a web widget with the message channels you support is available for particularly easy contact.

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Custom Message Templates

Thanks to various message templates that can be created individually, the amount of paperwork is minimized and the efficiency of customer communication is increased. This means that personnel resources in the service area can be deployed elsewhere.

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WhatsApp & SMS Marketing Newsletter

With Mateo's WhatsApp API solution, newsletters can be sent in a GDPR-compliant manner. Due to the first-class open rate of 98% for WhatsApp messages, marketing can thus be done much better than via email or other channels. With Mateo, you can also send your marketing newsletters automatically via SMS.
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More positive Google reviews

With Mateo, you create an outstanding customer experience. Mateo can automatically request online reviews from your customers. The more reviews you have, the better you will be found on Google, for example. Reviews also create trust in your company.

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Privacy

Mateo's messaging tool is compatible with all German and European legally binding data protection requirements. If the law changes, the software will be revised accordingly. For absolutely secure customer communication, all messages are encrypted end-to-end. You can read all the info about the GDPR when using WhatsApp in our article"WhatsApp Business and GDPR". This will help you avoid the warnings, severe penalties and expensive legal costs that often occur in the event of non-compliance with the GDPR (= use of the standard WhatsApp Business app).

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Scalability for all company sizes

The scalability of the messaging tool has been confirmed by the large number of companies already using Mateo with great satisfaction. Whether customers have just a few employees or many hundreds, the software works smoothly and, depending on the package, with an unlimited number of end devices, users and phone numbers. The fact that Mateo significantly reduces the workload in the customer service area opens up new growth opportunities for many companies.

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Low cost provider for WhatsApp Business API

With an entry-level price of just 79 euros per month, Mateo is a cost-effective provider for WhatsApp Business API solutions on the German market. Combined with the integration of additional communication channels and various helpful tools, Mateo offers excellent value for money. Mateo's personal customer support assists companies with every step of the integration, ensuring very low barriers to entry.

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Shopify and WhatsApp Integration - Tutorial [October 2023]