WhatsApp shipping and delivery updates
Endelir sends shipping and delivery updates on WhatsApp from your own system's order events, where the customer can reply, and the replies reach your team in one shared inbox. A tracking email goes to a folder nobody opens, and the courier's SMS comes from a number that cannot answer. Endelir sends dispatch, tracking and delivery updates to the customer's WhatsApp on your own business number, triggered by your order system at the moment each event happens. When something goes wrong, the customer replies to the update and your team is already in the conversation.
“Where is my order?” is the question you answer most
The information exists. It is in your order system, in the courier's portal, in an email the customer never opened, and behind a tracking page that asks for a number they would have to go and find. None of it is where the customer is, so they ask you instead, and someone on your team looks it up by hand for the third time that day.
The bigger cost is the exception. A parcel is late, the address is wrong, or nobody was home. The tracking page states the fact and offers nowhere to say anything about it, so the customer writes to whatever channel of yours they can find — and arrives with no order number, no parcel, and a good deal of patience already spent.
Updates that come out of your own order data
Your system already knows when a shipment is packed, handed over, out for delivery or delivered. At each of those points it calls Endelir with the customer's number and the details for that parcel, and Endelir sends an approved message template on your business number. The customer gets a short, plain message with the order number, the courier and a tracking link they can tap.
The important part is what happens after. The update is an ordinary WhatsApp message, so a reply opens a conversation in your shared inbox, with the message it answers sitting right above it. Endelir also posts every reply and every delivery status back to your own endpoint, so your helpdesk or order system hears about the problem as well. To be plain about the mechanism: Endelir does not connect to a courier or a shop platform by itself today, so something on your side makes the call.
How it works
- 1 Your system decides there is news An order is packed, a label is bought, a carrier scan arrives. Your order system, warehouse tool or a small script that receives the courier's webhook makes the decision, not us.
- 2 It calls Endelir with the details One API call carries the customer's phone number, the template to use, and the values that go into it — order number, courier, tracking number, expected day.
- 3 The approved template goes out Business-initiated messages use a template Meta has approved in advance. Endelir checks the template is approved and that the contact has not opted out before anything is sent.
- 4 The tracking link is on a button A template can carry a link button whose tail changes per message, so each customer's button opens their own tracking page rather than a generic one.
- 5 Each later event is its own message Out for delivery, delivered, delayed, failed attempt — each is a separate call at the moment it happens, so nothing pre-written goes out stale.
- 6 The customer can simply reply The reply lands in your shared inbox as a normal conversation and can be assigned to whoever handles delivery problems.
- 7 Your system is told what happened Endelir posts the reply, and the sent, delivered or failed status of your own message, to your webhook endpoint. It is signed, and it retries for roughly twenty minutes if your endpoint is down.
What this looks like in practice
A retailer ships from one warehouse using two couriers. The order system already writes a shipment record when a label is bought. Adding one call at that point sends the customer a dispatch message with the order number, the courier's name and a tracking button. A second call, from the script that receives the courier's status webhook, sends the out-for-delivery message.
The change the team notices is not the dispatch message — it is the replies. “Can you leave it with the neighbour” and “this says delivered and it is not here” now arrive in the shared inbox, attached to the update they answer, with the order number already on screen. Nobody has to ask the customer which order they mean.
What happens when the customer replies
Who this suits
What to know before you set it up
A shipping update tied to a real order is a Utility message, and Utility templates do not need recorded marketing consent. Add a discount line to that same template and it becomes Marketing, and Endelir will refuse to send it to a contact with no recorded marketing consent rather than send it quietly. Keep the offer in a separate campaign to opted-in customers. A contact who has opted out of automated messages is not messaged by the API either.
Endelir has no packaged courier or shop-platform integration switched on today, so the events come from your side: your order system, your warehouse tool, or a script that receives the courier's webhook. Endelir cannot report a delivery state your source system never sends. API access and the outgoing webhook depend on your plan, as does how many messages you can send in a month; the numbers are on the pricing page and the software enforces them exactly.
What to watch
- How many “where is my order” messages still arrive by hand
- How many dispatch and delivery updates were delivered, and how many failed
- How often a delivery update gets a reply, and what the replies are about
- How long a delivery problem takes to close in the inbox
- Which shipment events your system actually sends, and which it skips
- How many contacts have opted out of automated messages
Related
Questions people ask
Can customers receive their tracking link on WhatsApp?
Yes. The tracking number and the link are values your system passes in when it calls Endelir, and they go into the template. A template can carry a link button whose last part changes per message, so the button opens that customer's own tracking page rather than a generic one they then have to search. What the link points at is your choice — the courier's page, your own order-status page, or a page you host. Endelir sends whatever tracking information your system gives it; it does not go and look one up.
Can an “out for delivery” message be sent on WhatsApp?
Yes, when your systems know that the shipment is out for delivery. Most couriers publish that event through a webhook or an API, and once something on your side receives it, sending the message is one call to Endelir. The limit is worth stating plainly: Endelir cannot report a delivery state that the source system never exposes. If your courier only reports dispatch and delivery, those are the two messages you can send, and no amount of configuration will produce a third.
What happens when an order has multiple shipments?
Each shipment gets its own message, and the message has to identify itself. Endelir does not keep a parcel or order record of its own — it sends what your system tells it to send — so the shipment identity belongs in the values you pass in: parcel one of two, the items in that parcel, its own tracking number. Done that way, a customer with three parcels gets three updates they can tell apart, and a reply about the late one arrives in the inbox under the update it answers, so your team knows which parcel is meant.
Are shipping notifications Utility messages?
A genuine shipping, tracking or delivery update tied to an order the customer actually placed fits the Utility category, and a Utility template does not need recorded marketing consent. Put a promotion in the same message and it is a Marketing template, which does. This is not a matter of what you call it: Endelir reads the category off the approved template and refuses a Marketing send to a contact with no recorded consent. Keep the two apart — a plain update while the parcel is moving, and a separate campaign to opted-in customers if you want to sell them something afterwards.
Can the customer report a delivery problem by replying?
Yes, and this is the reason to send the update on WhatsApp at all. A reply opens a conversation in your shared inbox with the update sitting above it, so a delay, a wrong address, a missing parcel, a damaged one or a failed attempt arrives with its own context. Photographs can be sent straight into the same thread. The conversation can be assigned to whoever handles delivery problems, and Endelir posts the reply to your own webhook endpoint as well, so a helpdesk or order system can pick it up without anyone re-typing anything.
Will delivery updates stop “Where is my order?” questions?
It is fair to expect fewer of them, because the answer reaches the customer before they have to ask. We will not put a number on that, because we have not measured one and an invented figure would be worth nothing to you. Measure it yourself: count the where-is-my-order messages arriving by hand for a month before you switch this on, and again a month after. The other half of the benefit is not a reduction at all — the questions that do arrive come with the order attached, which makes them quicker to answer.
What happens if the tracking information changes?
Each update is sent at the moment your system decides there is news, so there is no queue of pre-written per-order messages sitting around to go stale. If the delivery day moves, your system sends a fresh message with the new information, and the customer sees the correction in the same thread as the original. The rule to hold to is on your side: send when the event happens, from the record as it stands then, rather than scheduling a message days ahead for a date that may not survive.
Keep customers informed from dispatch to doorstep
Connect your business number, point your order system at the API, and let the replies land where your team already works. We set the number up with you on a call and go through what your system needs to send.
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