From Instagram and WhatsApp to your store: a practical checklist

What stays in chat and what moves to the store

What needs a personal reply stays in chat: a sizing question, an extra photo, reassurance before a first purchase. What repeats on every order moves to the store: the price, available sizes, the address, payment and shipping cost.

That split gives the customer a price that never changes between messages, and gives you a complete order instead of a long chat to copy details from by hand.

The checklist

Have these ready before you share your store link:

• Your logo, and a sentence describing your brand and who it sells to.
• Product photos on a consistent background, with at least one per colour or variant.
• For each product: a clear name, a final price, sizes or colours, and stock.
• Shipping prices by governorate, and an honest delivery time.
• Payment methods: cash on delivery, InstaPay, wallets and bank transfer.
• A written returns policy, and contact details: name, address and phone.

What the law asks before you sell at a distance

Selling online and through chat counts as a “distance contract” under Egypt’s consumer protection law. Before the contract you must show the seller’s details (name, address, phone, commercial registration), the product’s characteristics, the price and every charge including shipping, the delivery date, and the conditions and period for withdrawal (Article 37).

Once an order is accepted you must confirm it to the customer and give them the right to correct or change it within 7 working days (Article 38). They may withdraw within 14 days of receipt (Article 40). Your store’s fixed pages and the confirmation message are the natural place for all of this.

A correct WhatsApp link

WhatsApp documents the chat link format: https://wa.me/ followed by your number in international format, with the country code and without leading zeros, a + sign, spaces or dashes. An Egyptian number starting 010 is written 2010 followed by the rest.

You can add a prefilled message with ?text= followed by URL-encoded text, which appears in the customer’s typing box. Make it a message that helps you reply: “Hello, I am asking about” and the product name.

Order links inside the chat

When the customer decides, send a link to order the product you discussed, instead of asking for the address in a message. They fill in name, address and payment on one page, at a price set by the store, and the order reaches you complete.

Put your store link in your Instagram bio, in your WhatsApp Business greeting, and in every post about a new product.

Product photos without a studio

You do not need a studio for your brand to look big. You need consistency: the same background, the same light and the same angle for every product in a collection. Daylight from a window and a white board or one-colour cloth are enough to start well.

Shoot the whole product, then a detail that shows the material, then a photo in use. Write a short description of each photo; it helps people using screen readers and helps search engines.

The first week after launch

A short plan that keeps the move calm:

• Announce the store in a post and a story, and say why: faster ordering and a clear price.
• Answer every question in chat as before, and send the order link when they decide.
• Confirm every new order by phone or message the same day.
• Ask your first ten customers about their experience, and fix what tripped them up.
• At the end of the week, review where orders came from and where customers stopped.

Measure what happens

Record where each order came from: the bio link, a conversation or an ad. After a month you will know which channel brings orders that are actually delivered, not orders refused at the door.

When you start advertising, connect your store to the ad platform’s measurement. Purchase events sent from your store help ads reach people who buy, not only people who tap.