Shopify and WhatsApp: the full order lifecycle
Connecting Shopify to Arino One turns store events into conversations: a cart left behind gets a nudge, an order gets a confirmation, a shipment gets tracking, and a delivered order asks for a review. The difference from an email flow is that every one of these is a two-way conversation — a customer replying "where is it?" lands in your inbox with the order already attached.
What you need first
- A Shopify store connected as a workspace connector.
- An approved WhatsApp Business Account with a registered sender.
- Four templates: order_confirmation and shipping_update filed as utility, cart_recovery and review_request filed as marketing.
- Recorded opt-in at checkout — a clear consent checkbox that captures source and timestamp, not a pre-ticked box buried in the terms.
Get the opt-in right before you build anything. Retrofitting consent onto a list you already messaged is not possible.
Wiring it up
Connect Shopify and map the fields: customer phone to contact phone in E.164, plus order number, total, currency, status and tracking number to custom fields. Those custom fields become your template variables.
Then build one automation per event:
| Store event | Wait | Message | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| Order created | none | order_confirmation | Utility |
| Fulfilment created | none | shipping_update with tracking | Utility |
| Cart abandoned | 1 hour | cart_recovery (opted-in only) | Marketing |
| Cart abandoned | 24 hours | cart_recovery second attempt | Marketing |
| Order delivered | 3 days | review_request | Marketing |
Two details are easy to miss and expensive to get wrong.
Add a stop condition to cart recovery. If the customer completes the purchase after the first nudge, the second one must not send. Nothing annoys a customer who just paid you like being chased for the cart they already bought.
Keep categories honest. Cart recovery is marketing. Confirmations and shipping updates are utility. Meta polices this, and misfiling is the single fastest route to a restricted account.
Test before you enable
Place a real test order and walk it through Automations, Runs. Each step shows what fired, what was skipped and why — an opted-out contact, a missing variable, a closed window. A pass here means the wiring, sender resolution and opt-in checks are all correct for real traffic.
Do not skip this because the automation "looks right". The most common failure is a template variable that maps to an empty Shopify field, which produces a send rejected by Meta at delivery time rather than a visible error at build time.
What good looks like
- Confirmations arrive within seconds of the order, not minutes.
- One recovery sequence, maximum two messages, with a genuine opt-out.
- Humans handle replies in the inbox, with automation only covering the first-line questions.
- Review requests go out after delivery, not after dispatch.
Where SMS fits
Not every market has WhatsApp penetration. The same automations can fall back to SMS per contact, so a customer without WhatsApp still gets their confirmation. Set the fallback at the automation level rather than duplicating the whole flow.
Steps at a glance
- Connect the storeAdd Shopify as a workspace connector, then map the customer, order and fulfilment fields onto Arino One contact fields and custom fields.
- Create the templatesSubmit four WhatsApp templates for approval: order_confirmation and shipping_update as utility, cart_recovery as marketing, and review_request as marketing.
- Automate order createdBuild an automation on order created that sends order_confirmation immediately, with the order number and total as variables.
- Automate fulfilmentBuild an automation on fulfilment created that sends shipping_update with the carrier and tracking number as variables.
- Automate cart recoveryTrigger on cart abandoned, wait one hour, send cart_recovery to opted-in contacts only, and optionally retry once at 24 hours. Add a stop condition so a completed purchase cancels the follow-up.
- Automate the review requestTrigger on order delivered, wait three days, then send review_request with a short link so you can measure clicks.
- Test with a real orderPlace a live test order and follow it through Automations, Runs step by step before enabling any automation for the whole audience.
Frequently asked
Does Arino One integrate with Shopify?
Yes. Shopify connects as a workspace connector, and store events — order created, fulfilment created, cart abandoned, order delivered — become automation triggers that send WhatsApp or SMS messages and upsert the customer as a contact.
Can I send WhatsApp abandoned cart messages from Shopify?
Yes, with two conditions: the contact must have recorded marketing opt-in captured at checkout, and the message must go out on a template filed under the marketing category. A recovery sequence should be at most two messages with an easy opt-out.
Which template category should order confirmations use?
Utility. Confirmations and shipping updates are transactional and belong in utility; only cart recovery and review requests are marketing. Filing marketing content under utility is one of the fastest ways to get a WhatsApp Business Account restricted.
What happens when a customer replies to an order message?
The reply lands in your shared inbox as a normal conversation with the order context attached, so an agent answering "where is my parcel?" can see the order and tracking number without opening Shopify.
Do I need opt-in for order confirmations?
You need a lawful basis for every send. Transactional confirmations for a purchase the customer made are generally defensible, but marketing messages such as cart recovery require explicit opt-in with source and timestamp recorded — which is exactly what the consent checkbox at checkout is for.
What does this cost?
The integration and automations are included in the $50/month instance connection and management fee. You pay Infobip's per-conversation WhatsApp rates for the messages themselves, with utility conversations typically cheaper than marketing ones.
Apply this to your own deployment
This guide describes decisions we make on live instances. Tell us your channels, systems and region and we will map it to an architecture outline, a provisioning plan and an indicative commercial model — usually within one business day.