Commerce Overview
ChatYug's WhatsApp Commerce APIs let integrators manage product catalogs, send catalog-linked messages, receive cart orders, and drive checkout through native WhatsApp Flows.
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, and checkout Flow messaging. Cart enablement, catalog linking, and Flow endpoint configuration are set up in the ChatYug portal before API calls will succeed end-to-end.
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 Flows | 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 |
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 and forwards
eventType: orderto your webhook - Checkout Flow is sent automatically (if enabled in portal) or manually via
POST /messages/flow - 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 — list, retrieve, status, notes, notify
- Checkout Flows — Flow CRUD, publish, send