Starter content
When you switch on WhatsApp Shop, your store gets a starter set of ready-made content, so you begin from working answers instead of empty pages:
- FAQs in five groups: orders and delivery, payments, returns and refunds, products, and store and contact. Each one has its own WhatsApp keywords.
- Knowledge pages for your website: shipping, returns, payment, contact, about, privacy policy and terms.
- WhatsApp forms: the delivery address form for checkout and a contact form.
- Chat flows for common requests, each started when a customer sends its keyword as the whole message: store hours and contact (hours), tracking an order (tracking), returns and exchanges (returns), checking the delivery area (delivery area), asking for a call back (call me), bulk or wholesale enquiries (wholesale), and feedback after delivery (feedback).
Everything is filled in with your store's own details wherever your store has them: its name, contact details, address, currency, shipping methods and rates, payment methods, and your WhatsApp Shop business hours.
Nothing reaches shoppers until you turn it on
Every item arrives as a draft. A draft FAQ is not answered by the WhatsApp bot and not used by the shopping assistant on your website, which shares the same FAQ. A draft page is not published, a draft form is not published to WhatsApp, and a draft flow does not start on its keyword. You decide what goes live, one item at a time or a whole tab at once.
Review and turn on
Open Customers → WhatsApp Shop → Starter content. Right after you switch the module on, the page may say Preparing your starter content… for a minute or two; it updates by itself.
- The summary at the top shows how many items are on out of all your drafts and live items, then how many are drafts, have an update waiting, were skipped or were removed.
- Pick a tab: FAQs (in their groups), Knowledge pages, Forms or Flows.
- Read each item's review notes. They point at anything the starter text could not take from your store and set to a common default instead, for example Check: the return window is set to 7 days. The privacy policy and terms say they are general text, not legal advice: check them against your own practices and local law.
- Click Edit to change the item in its own editor: a FAQ opens on the FAQ page with its form open, a page in the page editor, a form on the Forms card of WhatsApp Shop settings, and a flow in the flow editor.
- Click Turn on. To turn on a whole tab, click Turn on all. It counts only the drafts that can be turned on now, and asks first, listing their review notes. Afterwards the page shows how many items it turned on, and each item it could not turn on, with the reason.
Turn off takes an item out of use again without deleting it.
Turning on a starter flow does not publish anything in the flow builder: the flow starts when a customer sends its keyword, and for every other message the bot (or the flow you published yourself) answers as before. Typing menu or hi leaves a starter flow.
While there are drafts, the FAQ page, the Flows page and the Forms card in WhatsApp Shop settings each show a short note, N starter items are waiting for review, with a link back to the right tab of this page.
When an item cannot be turned on yet
Some items need something else first. The page says why under the item and keeps its Turn on button greyed out. For example, a WhatsApp form can only be published while WhatsApp is connected, and a chat flow cannot be turned on while the flow builder is off for your store, while the flow has problems to fix, or when its keyword is already used by the bot, a FAQ or another flow.
If WhatsApp refuses a turn-on at the last moment (a form it would not publish, for example), the page shows WhatsApp's reason under the item; fix it and click Turn on again.
What each status means
- Draft: copied into your store, not used yet.
- On: answering shoppers.
- Skipped: not copied, with the reason. A knowledge page is skipped when your store already has a page on that topic: your own page is never replaced or duplicated. Open takes you to your pages.
- Removed: you deleted this copy, so it is never added again by itself. Restore brings it back as a draft.
When the starter library changes
The starter library is kept up to date for every store. A copy you never edited follows the new version by itself and stays on or off as it was. It also follows your store's details: change a shipping method or its rate, and the unedited copies that mention it are filled in again.
A copy you edited stays yours. It shows A newer version is available, with two choices:
- Use the new version replaces your copy with the new text. The page asks first, because your edits are not kept.
- Keep mine keeps your copy and hides the note until an even newer version comes.
Who can do what
Anyone who may view WhatsApp Shop can open the page and read every item. Turning items on or off, Turn on all, Restore and the update choices need permission to manage WhatsApp Shop.