Guides
Selling on WhatsApp in Sri Lanka
Direct answers to the questions Sri Lankan shop owners actually ask — what WhatsApp really costs, whether a bot can handle Sinhala, how to serve tourists, and how to take an order you can actually ship.
How do you measure whether WhatsApp selling is working?
Track four things: conversations started, how many turned into orders, average response time, and how many enquiries arrive outside working hours. The last one is the number most shops never look at and usually the one hiding the most lost revenue, because an unanswered message leaves no trace anywhere else.
16 September 2026
How do you move from an unofficial WhatsApp tool to the official platform?
Verify your business with Meta first, connect the number to the WhatsApp Business Platform, then stop the unofficial tool. Since coexistence arrived in 2025 you can keep using the WhatsApp Business app on the same number throughout, so there is no gap in service — but plan for the verification wait, which usually takes days to a couple of weeks.
15 September 2026
What should a shop know about customer data on WhatsApp?
Every WhatsApp order collects personal data — a name, a phone number and a home address. The shop is responsible for that data, and any software used to handle it acts on the shop’s behalf. In practice that means collecting only what you need to ship the order, keeping it somewhere access-controlled, and being able to delete a customer’s details when they ask.
14 September 2026
Handling returns and exchanges over WhatsApp
An agent should state the return policy accurately and collect the details — order, item, reason, photos — but the decision itself belongs to a person. A return is usually an unhappy customer, and how it is handled decides whether they come back, which is not something to delegate to software.
13 September 2026
WhatsApp for salons and service businesses
An agent can answer the questions that surround a booking — services, prices, duration, location, opening hours — and collect a request with the customer’s preferred time and contact details. Confirming the slot itself should stay with a person unless the agent is connected to a real diary, because a double-booked appointment costs more than a slow reply.
12 September 2026
WhatsApp for restaurants and cafés in Sri Lanka
Restaurants get the same handful of questions constantly — is the menu available, do you deliver here, is a table free — and they arrive during service when nobody can answer. An agent can handle menu questions, delivery areas and opening hours instantly, take an order with the address, and hand anything unusual to staff. What it should never do is confirm a table or a delivery time the kitchen has not agreed.
11 September 2026
How do you get customers to message you on WhatsApp?
Use a wa.me link so one tap opens a chat with your message pre-filled, put a QR code where customers already stand — the counter, the parcel, the shopfront — and place the number on every profile and listing you own. The friction you are removing is small but decisive: most people will not save a number to start a conversation.
10 September 2026
How to choose a WhatsApp AI sales agent for a Sri Lankan business
Test four things before paying: whether it writes natural Sinhala and Singlish rather than stiff translation, whether it can invent a product or price that does not exist, whether it uses Meta’s official platform or an unofficial method that risks your number, and whether you can take over a conversation yourself. Most tools are built for English-speaking markets and fail the first test badly.
9 September 2026
Can several people answer the same WhatsApp business number?
On the free WhatsApp Business app, sharing a number between staff is awkward and limited to a few linked devices. On the WhatsApp Business Platform, messages flow into software instead of a single phone, so any number of staff can work the same number through a shared inbox, with automation handling the routine questions and people stepping in when needed.
8 September 2026
How do you send order and delivery updates on WhatsApp?
Outside the 24-hour window you can only message a customer using a template approved by Meta in advance. Order and delivery updates use the utility template category, which is charged per delivered message but is the cheapest category. Inside the window, an update is free like any other reply.
7 September 2026
How should a WhatsApp agent handle out-of-stock items?
The agent should say plainly that the item is unavailable and immediately offer the closest thing that is in stock. It must never take an order for an out-of-stock item, because an order the shop cannot fulfil costs the sale, the delivery, and usually the customer.
6 September 2026
AI agent or hire someone to answer WhatsApp?
Hire a person if your enquiries need judgement, negotiation or product expertise, and if they arrive during working hours. Use an agent if the same questions repeat, if messages arrive at night and weekends, or if the volume is too small to justify a salary but too large to keep up with. Most Sri Lankan shops end up wanting both — the agent for the repetition, a person for everything else.
5 September 2026
Can a WhatsApp agent send product photos automatically?
Yes. When a customer asks to see something, the agent can send the product photo from the shop’s own catalogue with the reply as a caption. The critical constraint is that it must only send a photo that genuinely belongs to the product being discussed — sending the wrong picture is worse than sending none, because the customer believes what they see.
4 September 2026
How do you get the green tick on WhatsApp in Sri Lanka?
The green tick beside a business name is Meta Verified, a paid subscription rather than a reward for size or age. You need a WhatsApp Business Platform number, a verified Meta business account, and a business that matches public records. Most small shops do not need it: showing your business name instead of a bare number already does the work of looking legitimate.
3 September 2026
What happens to the WhatsApp messages you get at night?
Yes, because customers shopping in the evening rarely wait until morning — they message several businesses and buy from whoever replies first. Enquiries arriving after closing time are usually the ones a shop loses without ever noticing, since an unanswered message leaves no trace in the sales figures.
2 September 2026
WhatsApp for tourism businesses in Sri Lanka
Tourism enquiries arrive at all hours from people in other time zones, often in Russian, Hebrew or Arabic rather than English, and usually before the visitor has arrived in Sri Lanka. A tourism business needs to answer quickly in the visitor’s own language, quote clear prices, and capture the booking or order without a person being awake — otherwise the enquiry goes to whoever replies first.
1 September 2026
When should a WhatsApp bot hand over to a human?
An agent should hand over whenever the customer asks for a person, when the conversation involves a complaint, refund or return, when it cannot answer from the shop’s own information, or when the tone turns emotional. The shop owner should also be able to step into any chat at any time and take over mid-conversation, then hand it back.
31 August 2026
Can a WhatsApp bot understand voice notes?
Yes. A WhatsApp agent can transcribe a voice note and answer it like any other message. This matters in Sri Lanka because typing Sinhala or Tamil on a phone is slower than speaking, so many customers send voice notes by default — and a bot that ignores them loses those customers entirely.
30 August 2026
Can a WhatsApp AI agent reply in Tamil?
Yes. A WhatsApp agent can reply in Tamil script and in romanised Tanglish, matching whichever the customer used. The quality difference between tools is large: weaker models produce formal written Tamil rather than the spoken Tamil people use on WhatsApp, and some leak characters from neighbouring Indic scripts such as Bengali or Gujarati into otherwise correct Tamil.
29 August 2026
How do you connect a WooCommerce store to WhatsApp?
Connect WooCommerce using its REST API keys, which lets your WhatsApp agent read your live product catalogue — titles, prices, stock status and photos. Once connected, the agent answers from real data instead of a pasted price list, and a webhook plus a nightly re-sync keeps it current when you change a price.
28 August 2026
What is the WhatsApp 24-hour window, and why does it matter?
When a customer messages your business, a 24-hour window opens during which you can reply freely and as often as you like, at no cost. Each new message from the customer restarts the clock. Once the window closes you can no longer send a free-form message and must use a pre-approved template, which is charged. This is why answering customers is effectively free while messaging people first is not.
27 August 2026
WhatsApp Business app or the API — which does a Sri Lankan shop need?
The WhatsApp Business app is a free phone app a person types in themselves. The WhatsApp Business Platform, often called the API, lets software send and receive messages on your number so replies can be automatic. Since Meta introduced coexistence in 2025 you can run both on the same number at once, keeping the app on your phone while software answers alongside it.
26 August 2026
Do customers mind talking to an AI on WhatsApp?
In practice customers care far more about getting a fast, accurate answer than about who wrote it. Complaints arise when the agent is obviously robotic, invents prices or refuses to fetch a human. An AI agent should say it is an AI when asked, answer only from the shop’s real catalogue, and hand over to a person the moment the conversation needs one.
14 August 2026
How to sell on WhatsApp in Sri Lanka
Use a WhatsApp Business number, publish it everywhere customers see you, answer quickly with real prices and photos, and capture the full delivery address before confirming any order. In Sri Lanka most sales close on cash on delivery, so the amount written on the waybill must match exactly what the customer was told, including the delivery charge.
14 August 2026
Is it allowed to automate WhatsApp replies for a business?
Automating replies is allowed and officially supported through Meta’s WhatsApp Business Platform, which exists specifically so businesses can answer customers programmatically. Numbers get restricted for how they are used, not for being automated: sending unsolicited bulk messages, messaging people who never contacted you, and being reported as spam are what cause bans. Answering people who message you first is exactly what the platform is designed for.
14 August 2026
What does a WhatsApp AI agent cost for a Sri Lankan shop?
Agent Kesh costs LKR 16,000 per month for 500 conversations on Starter, LKR 36,000 for 1,200 conversations on Growth, and LKR 95,000 upward for custom volume on Business. One conversation means one customer chatting on one day, however many messages they send. Most shops use only 30 to 40 percent of their plan.
14 August 2026
Can a WhatsApp AI agent reply in Sinhala?
Yes. A WhatsApp AI agent can reply in Sinhala script and in Singlish — Sinhala typed in English letters — which is how most Sri Lankans message. The difference between tools is quality: many produce stiff, literary Sinhala that reads like a government form, while a good agent writes the casual spoken Sinhala a shop assistant would use, and replies in whichever script the customer wrote in.
14 August 2026
How much does the WhatsApp Business API cost in Sri Lanka?
Access to the WhatsApp Business Platform is free — Meta charges per delivered template message, not for the platform. Conversations a customer starts are free to answer for 24 hours, with no limit on how many messages you exchange in that window. For a Sri Lankan shop replying to customers who message first, the WhatsApp cost is effectively zero; you pay only if you send marketing, utility or authentication templates.
14 August 2026
How do you take an order on WhatsApp without losing the address?
A shippable WhatsApp order needs the item and quantity, the customer’s name, the full delivery address including town, a contact number for the courier, and the amount to collect including delivery. Missing any of these means going back to the customer later, which is where orders are lost.
14 August 2026
How do you answer Russian, Hebrew and Arabic-speaking tourists on WhatsApp?
A WhatsApp AI agent can detect the language a tourist writes in and reply in it. Agent Kesh supports Russian, Hebrew and Arabic alongside Sinhala, Tamil and English: the visitor writes in their own language and gets an answer in the same language and script, quoting the shop’s real prices. Shops switch these languages on individually, so a business selling only to locals is unaffected.
14 August 2026
Try it yourself
There is a live demo shop you can message right now — no signup. Ask it in Sinhala, Singlish, Tamil, English, Hebrew, Russian or Arabic.
Chat with the demo shop