Connect Zid to WhatsApp (2026): an AI bot, order confirmation and cart reminders

What works today and what waits — in one table

Meta's cost on our accounts ÷ its message countsample 120 daysmeasured 5 September 2026

The steps to run a WhatsApp bot on a Zid store — today

This path waits for nobody, takes under an hour, and everything you build in it stays as it is the day the direct connection opens: the number, the agent, the knowledge base and the templates do not change; what changes is that the product source becomes Zid itself instead of your file.

1. Create the account and connect a WhatsApp number

   Sign up with no card, then connect the number through the official WhatsApp Cloud API. A +966 number is accepted like any other. Is your current number on the WhatsApp Business app? Move it with coexistence mode and keep your chats — or use a new number. You need a Meta business account; verification with the commercial register opens the higher tiers later.

2. Give the agent your products: a file or the store link

   Export the products from the Zid dashboard to a file (name, price, options, stock, description) and upload it to the knowledge base, or add your store link so the agent reads the product pages. The file is a copy — update it whenever you change a price or a product runs out; that is the most important item on this page until the direct connection opens.

3. Answer the agent's questions and set the dialect

   How products are ordered, how they ship and delivery times per region, the return policy, the payment methods you accept, and when to hand to a person. It builds its rules from your answers. Dialect: Gulf or auto.

4. Turn on order-taking and confirmation

   The agent collects product, option, quantity and address, records the order and sends a confirmation with buttons. The order reaches your dashboard and app for you to enter into Zid. The confirmation template goes to Meta for approval and is usually approved the same day — do not switch it on before approval.

5. Bind Instagram and Messenger to the same agent

   Many Zid stores sell from Instagram first. The same agent answers comments and DMs from the same inbox and finishes the order on WhatsApp.

6. Test with five messages, then go live

   «وش سعر الشحن للرياض؟» — «متوفر 12 مل؟» — a voice note about returns — a full order with an address — and a message in English. Then watch the first two days from the app and close the "questions it did not know" list with a line per question.

The direct Zid connection — what it adds and how it connects

The direct connection removes the copy: at the moment of the customer's question the agent asks Zid for the product, price, options, photos and stock, opens the order in Zid itself, reads its status by number, cancels it if the customer asks, sends a confirmation for every order created in Zid from any channel, and chases the abandoned cart from Zid's event. It was written around Zid's own particulars: a product name there is Arabic and English together, a made-to-order product with unlimited quantity is read as available rather than out of stock, and order lines are sent by SKU.

1. From the ArabyBot dashboard: connect your store → Zid

   This button is closed today, waiting on Zid approving our app; the day it opens, this is step one.

2. Approve once from the Zid dashboard

   Permissions to read products, stock and orders and write order status — no editing of prices or products. Approve from the owner account, and check the store name if you own more than one.

3. Switch the product source from the file to Zid

   Remove the product file from the knowledge base and keep the shipping and return policy in it. From that moment what you see in the Zid dashboard is what the customer sees in the chat.

4. Turn on shipping status and the abandoned cart

   Both depend on Zid's events, so they do not work before the connection. The cart: three messages on your timing, no more, and with the customer's consent.

What to prepare in your Zid store before approval day

Three small things in the Zid dashboard make the direct connection work from the first hour instead of stumbling on details: a SKU on every product and every option, because order lines are sent to Zid by code rather than name, and a product without one cannot have an order opened for it by the agent; an Arabic and an English name on every product, because the agent searches by the name the customer types and Zid stores both; and "unlimited quantity" set only on made-to-order products, because the agent reads them as always available — a product that ran out but kept the setting will be sold. All three help your store today too, since the product pages the agent reads from your store link show both names and the code.

Six mistakes that break the connection — or make it look broken

1. A stale product file left as it isUntil the direct connection opens, the file is a copy. A merchant uploaded the catalogue in June and changed prices in August, so the agent sold at June prices — the agent did not err, it read what it was given. Update the file with every change, or give it the store link to read the pages.
2. Pressing "Connect Zid" and expecting it to work todayThe button is closed until Zid's approval, and this page and the integration page say so plainly. Start with today's path; none of it is wasted.
3. The number is still active on the WhatsApp appThe WhatsApp Cloud API refuses a number simultaneously running on the app. Move it with coexistence mode, delete the account from inside WhatsApp's settings (not just the app), or use a new number.
4. Turning confirmation on before the template is approvedThe order is recorded and the message is not sent because Meta has not approved the template yet. Wait for "approved" — utility templates usually get it the same day.
5. A marketing broadcast to customers who did not consentA handful of reports lower the number's quality rating and its sending limit, and the number may be restricted. Consent when the number is collected, a way to stop in every message, and an approved template. The real reasons for bans are on this page.
6. An unverified business account, then a sale dayAn unverified account runs with a limited daily allowance for conversations you start; a sale day exhausts it before noon. Verify the business with the commercial register early. Your replies to people who wrote to you are unlimited.

The cost in riyals — a worked example

A perfume store on Zid taking 200 orders a month through the chat and confirming each with a message: 200 × 4 halalas ≈ 8 riyals from Meta. Customer questions about prices, delivery and gift wrapping — about a thousand conversations — are started by customers and cost zero. With the ArabyBot subscription (120 riyals for the WhatsApp plan) the total is about 128 riyals a month. After the direct connection, shipping and delivery messages are added at the same rate, and the abandoned cart at the marketing rate we do not publish for Saudi Arabia until we are billed for it. Full rates and a calculator are on WhatsApp API pricing in Saudi Arabia.

Frequently asked questions