Your store on WhatsApp, open all night.
A WhatsApp AI agent that takes grocery orders
Shoppers ask in their own words. The assistant answers with real products, builds the order and sends a checkout they confirm with a tap, on your own number.
Same as last week, plus 2 hummus
Order placed · arriving 6:30 pm
In short
Hephon Commerce is a WhatsApp AI agent for supermarkets and grocery retailers. It answers the retailer's own WhatsApp Business number in Arabic or English, sends products from the live catalog as cards with the shopper's branch prices, builds the basket and sends a checkout.
The order is placed only when the shopper confirms with a tap. Shoppers can type, send voice notes or call, and a person on the retailer's team can take over any chat. Alcohol and tobacco are always excluded on WhatsApp, and Meta bills the retailer directly for messages.
Updated
Everything a WhatsApp order needs.
Nothing a shopper has to learn: they text the way they already text.
- Product cards in the chat
- Answers come with products, prices and pictures, as WhatsApp lists and buttons the shopper taps.
- Photos and voice notes
- A shopper can send a photo of a product or a voice note in their dialect. It is understood like a typed message.
- Checkout with a tap
- The basket becomes a checkout the shopper reviews and confirms. Nothing is ordered on a typed yes.
- Order updates
- Confirmed, out for delivery, delivered: the shopper hears about their order in the same chat, with a tracking page.
- WhatsApp calls
- Shoppers can call your number and order by voice, in Arabic or English.
- Meta's rules, enforced
- Alcohol and tobacco never appear on WhatsApp, removed on our server before the assistant sees your catalog.
A WhatsApp grocery order, start to finish.
A Saudi shopper on a store that asks for the location first, with a voice note in the middle.
- Shopper:
السلام عليكم، توصلون لحي النرجس؟
Hello, do you deliver to Al Narjis?
- Assistant:
وعليكم السلام. أرسل لي موقعك عشان أعرف أقرب فرع لك.
Hello. Send me your location so I can find the nearest branch.
This store asks for the location first, so no price goes out before a branch is set.
- Shopper:
(shares a location pin)
- Assistant:
تمام، أقرب فرع يوصل لك. تبي توصيل ولا استلام من الفرع؟
Great, the nearest branch delivers to you. Delivery or pickup?
The pin picked the nearest branch. Delivery and pickup are two buttons.
- Shopper:
(voice note) توصيل. أبي حليب طازج وبيض وخبز توست
Delivery. I want fresh milk, eggs and toast bread.
The voice note is transcribed and answered like a typed message.
- Assistant:
هذي الخيارات المتوفرة في فرعك:
Here is what your branch has:
Product cards with the branch's prices, as a WhatsApp list the shopper taps.
- Shopper:
ضيف الثاني من الحليب وكرتون بيض
Add the second milk and a carton of eggs.
- Assistant:
أضفت الحليب وكرتون البيض للسلة. تبي شي ثاني؟
I added the milk and the carton of eggs to your basket. Anything else?
“The second one” counts in the list it just sent.
- Shopper:
لا، خلاص
No, that's all.
- Assistant:
هذي سلتك. اضغط إتمام الطلب عشان تراجعها وتأكدها.
Here is your basket. Tap Checkout to review and confirm it.
Checkout opens as a form inside WhatsApp. Nothing is ordered yet.
- Shopper:
(taps Confirm order)
- Assistant:
تم تأكيد طلبك. بنرسل لك تحديثات الطلب هنا.
Your order is confirmed. We will send its updates here.
Only the tap placed the order. Updates and a tracking page follow in the same chat.
How does WhatsApp ordering work, step by step?
WhatsApp commerce works when the shopper never has to learn anything new. They message your number the way they message a friend, and the assistant does the rest. Here is what happens in a typical order.
- The shopper writes, speaks or taps. A typed message, a voice note, a photo of a product, a tap on a card, a shared location or a reply to an earlier message. Each one is understood in the shopper's language, whether that is Gulf Arabic, Arabizi or English.
- The branch is set. If you choose to ask for the location first, nothing priced goes out until the shopper shares a pin or names their area. The nearest branch is picked, and the shopper chooses delivery or pickup. Every price and stock answer after that is the one that branch will deliver.
- Products arrive as cards. The assistant searches your live catalog, checks each result against what the shopper asked, and sends the matches as a WhatsApp list with prices and pictures. A broad request, such as a list for a family breakfast, comes back as one row per item.
- The basket fills. “The second one”, “two of those”, “something similar” and “anything cheaper” all work, because the assistant knows which products it just showed.
- The shopper confirms the checkout. The checkout opens as a form inside WhatsApp, with the basket, delivery details and payment option. The order is placed only when the shopper taps to confirm. A typed “yes” never places an order.
- Updates follow in the same chat. Confirmed, out for delivery, delivered: each change is sent as a WhatsApp message, with a link to an order tracking page.
Replies are kept short: at most one message and one set of buttons or a list per turn, with the assistant's words folded into the interactive message when they fit.
The right branch, before any price.
Location first, where prices differ
A shared pin or a typed area picks the nearest branch. Until then nothing priced goes out, so every price and stock answer is the one that will be delivered.
- Delivery or pickup chosen in the chat
- Typed areas placed on the map, then the nearest branch
Delivering from your nearest branch
Almarai Full Fat Milk 1 L$1.70
Hawa Brown Eggs, 15$2.99
Hawa Chicken Breast 650 g$10.25Every chat in one inbox
Conversations, orders and calls from your number land in your inbox as they happen. When a shopper asks for a person, your team replies in the same thread.
- Live conversations, with the products and basket the assistant showed
- Hand-overs flagged the moment a shopper asks for a person
Rana M.WhatsApp
Can I change the delivery address on my last order?
Omar K.Call
Basket confirmed on the keypad, 7 items
Lea H.App
Gluten-free bread for a party of 10
How do checkout and payment work on WhatsApp?
When the shopper is ready, the assistant sends a checkout. It opens as a WhatsApp form with the basket, the delivery or pickup choice and the payment option, with a plain button to confirm as a fallback. Payment follows the options you choose: cash on delivery, card on delivery, or a payment link from your platform. The order then goes to your platform through its API, or to your team as an order ticket in the dashboard.
Who pays for the WhatsApp messages?
You do, directly to Meta. Your WhatsApp Business number sits in your own business account on Meta's platform, and Meta bills its messages to you at Meta's prices. Hephon Commerce is not a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider reselling messages, and it does not add a margin to them. The dashboard shows an estimate of the WhatsApp cost next to your other usage, marked as billed by Meta.
Why are alcohol and tobacco never shown on WhatsApp?
Meta's commerce policy does not allow them, so on every WhatsApp chat and call our server removes alcohol and tobacco from the catalog before the assistant sees it, even for a store with no other restrictions. A store that is set as Halal also hides pork, on every channel. Each product is judged by an AI model, not a word list, and a product that has not been checked yet stays hidden. A number starts answering shoppers only once every product in the catalog has been checked.
What happens when a shopper wants a person?
Every WhatsApp conversation, voice note and call is in your team's live inbox, with the products the assistant showed and the basket it built. When a shopper asks for a person, the chat is flagged and anyone on your team can reply in the same WhatsApp thread. If your team works in a help desk, the hand-over can be sent there through an integration.
How do shoppers find the number?
Share a wa.me link or print its QR code. You can make one for the whole store or one per branch: a shopper who scans a branch's code starts the chat in that branch, and the inbox shows where they came from. Shoppers who tap a click-to-WhatsApp ad reach the same assistant.
What it does not do
- It never places an order without the shopper's tap on the checkout.
- It does not invent products, prices or delivery times. It offers what the shopper's branch has.
- It does not show alcohol or tobacco on WhatsApp, under any setting.
When Hephon Commerce is not the right fit
- You do not have, or cannot get, a WhatsApp Business number on Meta's official platform. It does not work on the WhatsApp Business app on a phone.
- You are looking for a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider to buy messages from, or a tool for campaigns and broadcasts.
- Most of what you sell is alcohol or tobacco, which WhatsApp does not allow.
- You have no online catalog with prices and stock per branch.
Set up and run for you.
We connect the number, keep it healthy and watch every message.
- Your number, verified
- Your own WhatsApp Business number and name, connected to Meta's Cloud API for you.
- Templates and commands
- Message templates for order updates and the words shoppers can send, such as “basket” or “help”, set per number.
- Every message logged
- Each message, webhook and call is logged, and open problems are raised before shoppers notice them.
- Meta bills you directly
- WhatsApp conversations are billed by Meta to your business account, at Meta's prices.
Live in three steps.
- 1
Connect your catalog
From Shopify, WooCommerce, a product feed or our API, with each branch's prices and stock. Every product is checked against WhatsApp's rules.
- 2
Connect your number
Your WhatsApp Business number on Meta's Cloud API, with its templates, commands and whether to ask for the location first.
- 3
Test, then open it
We run the WhatsApp tests on your own catalog and you try it on a test phone. Then share the link or QR code with shoppers.
WhatsApp shopping, answered.
See it on your own catalog.
We set up a demo with your products, your branches and your shoppers' languages.
