Confirm the delivery plan after the buyer has chosen the item and you have enough detail to treat the sale as a real order, but before you promise a delivery price, timing or handover. First establish what is being bought, where the parcel will start, where it should go and what it will contain. Then check the currently available choices for those details and agree the arrangement with the buyer.
Keep four moments distinct: product interest, confirmed order, parcel readiness and handover. A buyer asking “Is this available?” has not yet settled a delivery plan. Once they have chosen the item, quantity and any agreed variations, delivery becomes part of completing the order. Confirm the practical details before packing or dispatch, and make sure both sides know the agreed next step.
Treat interest as a conversation, not a delivery commitment
A WhatsApp chat often moves quickly from a question about a product to “Please send it.” That is a good point to clarify whether the buyer has decided to purchase, but it does not yet tell you what delivery will involve. The product, parcel and destination can all affect which options are available and what they cost.
Reply with a short order summary: the item and quantity, the agreed total for the goods, and a request for the recipient and destination details needed to check delivery. If the buyer is still deciding between sizes, colours or quantities, settle that first. Otherwise, you may check a parcel configuration that no longer matches the order.
This small pause makes the exchange clearer without turning it into a formal checkout. Kenya’s 2023 National E-Commerce Strategy describes significant social-media commerce between consumers and micro-businesses and notes that it may serve people with narrower internet access. It also treats trust, logistics, payments and digital skills as enabling conditions. That is useful context for making chat-based buying practical, but it is dated context rather than a measure of current customer preferences or delivery coverage.[1]
Confirm the order, then gather delivery details
Once the buyer has chosen the item, confirm the order in writing before working out a buyer-specific delivery plan. Include enough to catch misunderstandings: what is included, quantity, any agreed variant, and the amount due for the goods. Ask for the recipient’s name and a destination that can be used to check available delivery choices. Confirm how the recipient can be reached or identified for the handover, where that is relevant to the selected option.
Ask only for the information needed to complete this order. A buyer may be using a shared phone or have limited internet access; the 2023/24 national ICT survey reported that 11.3% of the surveyed population aged three and over were mobile sharers. That figure describes phone use, not online shopping or delivery preference, but it is a reminder to make instructions easy to follow and to avoid assuming every buyer has a private device or uninterrupted access.[2]
If a destination description is unclear, resolve it in the chat before seeking a quote. “Near the shops” may mean different places to different people. Ask the buyer to specify the selected location in a way both of you can recognise. Do not guess and then present the resulting price as if it were for the intended destination.
Check the real parcel before quoting
Before checking delivery, prepare a sensible estimate of the parcel: its contents, packaging, dimensions and weight as far as you know them. The details you enter should represent the parcel you expect to hand over, not just the product before packing. If packaging changes the size or weight materially, update the check before you confirm the delivery arrangement.
Use Moveka Send with the actual parcel details and selected locations to see currently available delivery choices and prices for this order. Availability and price depend on those inputs, so treat the result as an order-specific check, not a nationwide tariff or a guarantee that a particular option will remain available in every circumstance. Share the relevant choice and price with the buyer and agree who will arrange and pay for delivery before you proceed.
The general tradeoff is familiar: a set delivery charge can make a buyer’s total easier to understand, while a charge based on the shipment depends on actual parcel details. Absorbing delivery into the product price still affects your margin, even if the buyer sees one combined amount. Shopify outlines these approaches as a decision framework for its own store context; use the tradeoffs, not its platform-specific settings or examples.[3]
For a small home-based business, a practical approach is to check each order while you are learning what your parcels and destinations involve. If you later set a standard delivery contribution for a narrow, repeatable type of order, be clear about what it covers and when you need to check separately. A standard amount is a pricing choice, not evidence that every parcel or destination will match it.
Make parcel readiness the final check
After the buyer accepts the delivery plan, prepare the parcel and compare it with the details you used. Confirm that the contents and packaging match the order; check that the recipient and destination still match the agreed plan. If something has changed, pause and recheck before handover. This is especially useful when the buyer has changed quantity, asked for different packaging or corrected the destination after the first quote.
Before release, send a concise confirmation in the chat: the order, the agreed delivery choice, the delivery amount and the recipient or handover details. Keep the message specific enough that you and the buyer can refer back to the same arrangement. If you cannot yet confirm a particular detail, say what is still pending and agree when you will update it rather than presenting an estimate as settled.
The sequence is simple: interest, order, delivery check, parcel readiness, handover. It gives the buyer a chance to understand the delivered cost before you commit, and it gives you a natural point to catch mismatched details before the parcel leaves your hands.
For your next WhatsApp order, confirm the item first, check delivery against the real parcel and agreed locations, then promise the plan both of you can see. Moveka Send gives you a concrete way to check the currently available choices and prices for that order before you commit.
