How a Chat Sale Actually Completes: Catalogues, Payment Links and Delivery

The previous piece set out the four parts of a chat sale. This one follows a single order through all of them, in the order the customer experiences it, and marks where each step usually breaks.

The example is a caterer. Catering has every awkward feature a chat sale can have: a price that depends on headcount, a date, a delivery window and a deposit.

Step 1: the message arrives

A customer writes on WhatsApp at 9.40pm: “hi do you still have the nasi lemak set for 40 pax on the 8th”.

That sentence holds three facts: a product, a quantity and a date. A system that treats it as a frequently asked question replies with the menu. A system that reads it properly picks out all three and checks that date.

Where it breaks: tools that need customers to phrase things a certain way. Real messages have no punctuation, mix languages and arrive as voice notes. Before you choose a tool, run fifty real messages from last week through it without cleaning them up first. AeroChat transcribes WhatsApp voice notes automatically and replies in the customer’s language, including messages that mix languages.

Step 2: reading the catalogue

The reply needs the price for 40 portions, whether the 8th is free, and the delivery options. That means reading real data. Your website copy will not have the answer.

Three catalogue setups, and what each can answer:

For a seller with no storefront, the Google Sheet route needs no store subscription. It is not an order management system, and sellers grow from it into a store. See how to start selling in chat with a Google Sheet.

Where it breaks: data that disagrees. One price on the Sheet, another on the website and a third in the Instagram catalogue. Fix the data before you automate the answer.

Step 3: the quote, and the limits on it

The reply has to include a price, and here the system needs firm limits. Can it apply a 10% bulk discount at 40 pax? Can it agree to a 7am delivery? Can it hold the date without a deposit?

Those are your commercial decisions, and the software should enforce them. In AeroChat the merchant sets limits on refund amounts, discounts, delivery dates and when to hand over to a person, and AeroChat applies them itself. A limit written only into the AI’s instructions can be argued past by a persistent customer. A limit applied by the system when it carries out the action holds whatever the customer says.

Where it breaks: vendors who answer “where is the discount limit enforced?” by describing their prompt. Ask the question directly.

Step 4: the payment link

The customer says yes. Now they need to pay a deposit without leaving WhatsApp.

A payment link is a checkout for this one order, sent into the chat. It works on your website chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and email. The customer taps, pays and comes back to the same conversation.

Insist on two things. First, the money goes to you: AeroChat never sees card numbers and never holds your funds, and money settles directly into your Airwallex balance. Second, confirmation does not depend on the customer: every payment gets confirmed twice, once the moment Airwallex’s webhook fires, and again when the customer lands on the confirmation page.

The deposit also turns a verbal yes into a commitment. For any business that books a date or an appointment, a deposit is the main defence against no-shows, and it is easier to ask for inside a conversation than by email.

Where it breaks: a paid link that does not create an order. If nobody is told to cook 40 portions for the 8th, you have taken money and created a problem.

Step 5: delivery

The order exists and is paid. Now it has to arrive, and the customer needs to see that it will.

AeroChat books delivery with your courier through its API. Depending on the courier, it can create a shipment and label, book, reschedule or cancel a pickup, track a parcel and quote a rate. Delivery updates go to the shopper on the channel they used, so “when is it coming?” is answered in the chat where it would have been asked.

The payment provider and the courier are two separate connections. AeroChat connects to each directly. Neither is reached through the other.

Where it breaks: automation that stops at payment. It is the most common half-built version of chat selling, and every order it takes adds a delivery question to your inbox. See WISMO.

Step 6: the change request, and what it costs

Two days before the date, the customer writes: “can you make it 45 instead”.

That is an order change. The system has to read the order, re-price it, collect the difference and update the delivery booking. It repeats the earlier steps in a shorter form, and it is the clearest test of whether a tool can take actions or only answer questions.

It is also where WhatsApp charges add up. Meta changed its pricing on 1 October 2026.

Source: Meta, WhatsApp Business Platform pricing documentation, checked 24 October 2026

So the number of replies it takes to finish a change request now has a price once you pass the free tier. Four short messages cost four times what one complete message costs. Count your replies per finished conversation. See conversation-based pricing.

What it costs a caterer to run this

AeroChat plans are priced on AI responses. As an example, a caterer taking around 250 enquiries a month, at five or six AI replies each from first message to delivery update, uses about 1,250 to 1,500 responses. That fits Growth, which includes 2,000 AI responses a month and is the first plan with payment links and WhatsApp broadcasts. A caterer handling under 100 enquiries a month would fit Starter’s 500 responses, with deposits collected outside the chat.

What to make a vendor show you

Demos follow the easy path: one customer buys one t-shirt in a medium and everything works. Ask for these six instead. They happen every week in a real business.

1. Run my fifty messages. Export fifty real messages from last week without tidying them, including voice notes and mixed-language ones, and watch them go through.
2. Change the order after payment. 40 to 45 portions, with the price difference collected and the delivery booking updated.
3. Hit a limit. Ask for a bigger discount than you allow and see what happens. Then ask where that limit is enforced.
4. Break the catalogue. Make the Sheet disagree with the store, and see which one wins and whether anyone is told.
5. Ask what your data does not cover. It should hand the conversation to a person instead of guessing.
6. Hand over and come back. Pass the conversation to a person with the order number and transcript attached, resolve it, and let automation take the next routine question in the same chat.

A tool that fails item 2 can answer questions but cannot complete a sale. A tool that fails item 3 will at some point agree to something you did not authorise, in writing, to a customer who keeps the screenshot.

The short version

1. Read the message properly, including the messy ones.
2. Check real data, kept in one place.
3. Quote inside limits the software enforces.
4. Take payment in the chat, into your own account, confirmed twice.
5. Book the delivery and send updates to the same channel.
6. Handle change requests with the same steps.

Read next

• The four pieces a chat sale needs
• Customer service automation for restaurants and caterers
• Payment link
• Conversation-based pricing
• AI agent
• Get paid without leaving the conversation

Related guides

• Automate Payment Links in Chat
• WhatsApp payment reminder templates
• WhatsApp Payment Links That Confirm the Order When Paid
• Automate Shipping Quotes in Chat
• Automate Delivery Booking in Chat

Run the six tests on your own orders

Describe how your orders, deposits and deliveries should run, connect Airwallex and your courier, and put last week’s fifty real messages through AeroChat. You will see where each one ends up before a customer does.

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