Commerce Overview
ChatYug's WhatsApp Commerce APIs let integrators manage product catalogs, send catalog-linked messages, receive cart orders, drive checkout through native WhatsApp Flows, and collect in-WhatsApp gateway payments via order_details.
What is WhatsApp Commerce?
WhatsApp Commerce connects a Meta product catalog to your WhatsApp Business number. Customers browse products inside WhatsApp, add items to Meta's native cart, and place orders. ChatYug persists those orders and can send a checkout Flow to collect shipping and payment details.
The External API covers catalog and product management, outbound product messages, order retrieval and status updates, checkout Flow messaging, and commerce settings for auto-acknowledgement and per-WABA order numbering (GET/PUT /commerce/settings). Catalog linking, Meta cart enablement, and Flow endpoint RSA keys are still set up in the ChatYug portal.
POST /catalogs, set vertical to commerce. ChatYug defaults to this value for WhatsApp product shops (getDefaultCatalogVertical() in the platform registry).
Choosing a commerce path
Three distinct patterns are available. Pick based on whether the customer browses a live catalog in WhatsApp or receives a marketing carousel blast.
| Path | When to use | Key APIs | Order source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native catalog cart | Customer browses a linked catalog and checks out in WhatsApp's built-in cart UI | Product list / single product | catalog_cart |
| Checkout Flow | After a cart order, collect address and payment via a WhatsApp Flow form | Checkout & Flow Design | Uses flow_token from the order row |
| Carousel campaign | Marketing blast with multi-card template; Buy button creates an order without native cart | Carousel | carousel_campaign or carousel_inquiry |
| WhatsApp Payments | In-WA gateway pay (PayU / Razorpay / BillDesk / Zaakpay) via interactive order_details | WhatsApp Payments | Your reference_id + eventType: payment |
Typical native-cart journey
- Create a catalog (
POST /catalogs) and add products (POST /catalogs/:catalogId/products) - Send a product list message to the customer (
POST /messages/product-list) - Customer browses and adds to cart entirely inside WhatsApp (Meta UI — no ChatYug API)
- Customer places the order; ChatYug receives it, allocates a per-WABA
order_number, and forwardseventType: orderto your webhook - Optional auto-ack (text or template) or checkout Flow is sent per
/commerce/settings - Update order status and notify the customer (
PUT /orders/:orderId/status)
API sections
- Catalogs — list and create catalogs
- Products — categories, list, create, update
- Sending Product Messages — product list, single product, payload builder
- Orders — settings (auto-ack + numbering), list, retrieve, status, notes, notify
- Checkout & Flow Design — portal designer, Flow CRUD, publish, test send, API send
- Flow Design Guide — components, properties, ChatYug usage, Meta rejection fixes
- WhatsApp Payments — order_details, payment webhooks, order_status, gateway configuration