WhatsApp order confirmations and updates
Endelir turns each order event in your own system — confirmed, packed, shipped, delivered — into a WhatsApp update, and the customer's replies land in your shared inbox. A customer who has just paid you wants one thing: to know the order is real and what happens next. Endelir lets the system that already holds the order — your shop, your ERP, your billing software — send that update on WhatsApp the moment the state changes, so the message comes from the order itself rather than from someone remembering to type it.
The update depends on someone remembering
Most order messaging is manual. Someone checks the panel in the morning, copies a list of order numbers, and sends confirmations by hand. It holds up while orders are few. On a busy day the confirmations go out late, the dispatch note goes out for some orders and not others, and a cancelled order still gets told it has shipped.
The customer fills the gap by asking. "Has my order gone?" "When is it coming?" Those questions arrive on whatever number is printed on the packaging, and your team spends the day answering things the order record already knows. Email does not help much — the confirmation sits unopened, and the customer asks anyway.
The order state sends the message
Endelir gives your workspace a REST API. When an order is created, paid, packed, shipped, delivered, cancelled or refunded, the system that recorded that change calls Endelir with the customer's number, the approved template to use and the values that go into it — order number, item, amount, tracking link. The message goes out in seconds because nothing human sits between the event and the send.
Endelir is not the shop and does not watch it. There is no packaged Shopify or WooCommerce switch to turn on today, so the call is made by your own system or by whoever maintains it — a few lines against a documented endpoint. What Endelir does own is the rest of the conversation: the message is logged against the contact, the reply comes back into your shared inbox, and Endelir can post that reply to a URL of yours so the order system hears about it too.
How it works
- 1 Something happens to the order It is placed, the payment clears, it is packed, it goes out for delivery, it arrives, it is cancelled. Your system records that, as it already does.
- 2 Your system calls Endelir One authenticated request carries the customer's phone number, which approved template to use, and the values that fill it.
- 3 It goes out as an approved template Business-initiated messages use a template that Meta has approved in advance, so the update can be sent whether or not the customer wrote to you recently.
- 4 The customer gets a real status The wording comes from the order record, so it says what actually happened rather than what someone assumed happened.
- 5 The reply lands with your team Anything the customer sends back opens in the shared inbox, on the same thread as the update, with the earlier messages above it.
- 6 Your systems hear the reply Endelir can post inbound messages and delivery status to your own URL, signed and retried, so the order system knows a customer has asked for a change.
- 7 The next event repeats it Each stage is its own call. When an order is cancelled your system stops calling for that journey, and the shipping messages simply never go.
What this looks like in practice
A retailer ships from one warehouse and used to send confirmations from a spreadsheet each afternoon. Customers who ordered in the morning heard nothing until then and rang the shop instead, so the counter phone spent the day answering "where is my order" instead of taking new orders.
Now the shop's own backend calls Endelir at four points: order confirmed, payment received, dispatched with the courier's tracking link, and delivered. The templates were written once and approved before any of it went live. Replies arrive in the shared inbox — a wrong flat number, a request to hold delivery until Saturday — and go to whoever is on dispatch that day. The afternoon spreadsheet is gone.
What can happen next
Who this suits
What to know before you set it up
An update about an order the customer actually placed is a Utility message: it is about a transaction they started, and that is the permission it rests on. Add a discount code or a suggestion to buy something else and the message becomes Marketing — a different template category, and one that needs recorded consent. Endelir refuses a marketing campaign to contacts with no consent on file, so keep the two apart and send them as separate messages rather than trying to fold an offer into a dispatch note.
Business-initiated messages use templates Meta approves in advance. Endelir syncs their status from Meta, so you can see which are approved and which were rejected, but the decision is Meta's and not ours. The values you pass in are sent as given: an empty order number or the wrong tracking link goes out exactly as written, so have your system check its fields before it calls, and use a test contact the first time.
The connection is an API call from your side. There is no packaged Shopify or WooCommerce integration you can switch on today, so budget a little developer time for the system that holds your orders. How many messages your plan includes is on the pricing page, and the software enforces it exactly.
What to watch
- How many orders get a confirmation at all
- How long after the event the update actually goes out
- How many "where is my order" questions still reach your team
- How many customers reply, and what they ask for
- How many sends fail, and for which template
- How many address or delivery changes are caught before dispatch
Related
Questions people ask
Can WhatsApp automatically send an order confirmation?
Yes, once your order system tells Endelir the order exists. The confirmation is sent by an API call made when the order is actually created, so it reflects a real order rather than an assumption that checkout finished. Nobody has to open a panel or copy a list. What Endelir does not do is watch your shop by itself — the event has to be pushed to us, which is a small change in the system that already records the order.
What order updates can customers receive?
Whatever stages your own system records. In practice that usually means order confirmed, payment received, being prepared, dispatched, out for delivery, delivered, cancelled and refunded. Each stage is a separate call from your system with its own approved template, so you can send four of them or all eight. Only send the stages your system genuinely knows about: a "dispatched" message that fires on a guess is worse than no message, because the customer will believe it and ask you about it later.
Are order updates Utility messages?
An update about an order the customer placed is non-promotional and fits the Utility purpose — confirmed, packed, shipped, delivered, refunded. Adding a discount code, a reorder prompt or a recommendation changes the intent to Marketing, which is a different template category and needs the customer's consent on record. The practical rule is to keep them as separate messages: send the dispatch note as a Utility template, and if you want to offer something later, send that to customers who have opted in.
Can customers reply to an order update?
Yes, and they will. A reply to a template opens a normal conversation in your shared inbox, on the same thread as the update that prompted it, so whoever answers can see what the customer was already told. Common replies are a corrected address, a request to delay delivery, a question about timing and a problem with what arrived. Each can be assigned to a person, and Endelir can post the incoming message to a URL of yours so your order system raises the change where your team already works.
What happens if an order is cancelled before the next update?
Nothing further goes out, because nothing further is called. Each stage is a separate request from your system, so when the order is cancelled there your system simply stops sending for that journey and the shipping message is never triggered. From there you can send a cancellation confirmation, and a refund message when the refund is actually processed on your side. Endelir does not process refunds and does not know an order has been cancelled until you say so.
Can order messages include the order number and product details?
Yes. An approved template can carry variables, and your system passes the values in with the send — order number, item, amount, delivery date, a tracking link. A document or image can go in the header, which is how an invoice or a delivery note reaches the same thread. Validate the values before you send: Endelir passes through what your system gives it, so a blank field or a stale tracking link goes out exactly as supplied. Sending to one test contact before you switch it on catches most of that.
Can Shopify or WooCommerce trigger these messages automatically?
Not today. The packaged shop integrations are not available to switch on, so nothing connects your store to Endelir without code. The working route is the API: your store's own order webhook or a small script calls Endelir when the order state changes, which is well within the reach of the developer who maintains the shop. When a packaged integration becomes available it will get its own page listing the exact events it supports, rather than a general claim that everything is covered.
Turn every order event into a clear customer update.
Bring the number, and the system that holds your orders. We set the connection up with you on a call and send the first confirmation to a test contact before any customer sees it.
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