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Products in WhatsApp links the products in Popcorn to a Meta commerce catalog. Once connected, the products your AI agent recommends, and the products your team sends from the Inbox, arrive as WhatsApp product cards that customers can open and add to a cart, instead of plain image messages. Use it when you have products in Popcorn and at least one WhatsApp number. It is a panel on the Account tab of Integrations → WhatsApp. Its badge shows where the catalog stands: Not set up yet, Syncing, Live, Needs attention or Needs reconnect.

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Before you start

  • At least one WhatsApp number connected. See Connect WhatsApp.
  • Products in Popcorn, synced from your store or added by hand. See Product catalog.
  • A Meta catalog of the Commerce type, shared with Popcorn AI. A catalog that Meta’s sign-in window creates is shared in the same step. A catalog made anywhere else, such as Commerce Manager, is invisible to Popcorn until it is shared through that window.
  • Meta allows one catalog per WhatsApp account, and the catalog is shared by every number on that account.
  • A role that can manage products. Without it, the panel says “Ask an admin to finish setting up your products.”

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Connect the catalog

You can connect it while connecting a number, or later. While connecting a number. Meta’s window can create a catalog or let you pick one you already have, and Popcorn connects it in the last step (Setting up products). The success message then adds “Your catalog” and its name “is connected too.” Later, from the Account tab.
1

Click Set up products

On the Products in WhatsApp panel (“Sync your Popcorn AI products so customers can browse them and receive product cards in WhatsApp.”), click Set up products. Popcorn looks at the catalogs Meta has shared with it.
2

Choose a catalog if asked

With one catalog, Popcorn connects it. With several, Choose where to sync your products lists them (“We found these catalogs in the Meta business connected to your WhatsApp number.”). Each option under Use an existing catalog shows its name, “Catalog ending in” its last digits, Products with a count, Owner, and “Already linked to this WhatsApp account” where that applies. Pick one and click Connect products.
3

Let the first sync run

You see Catalog connected: “Your products are syncing to WhatsApp. This can take a few minutes.” The sync runs on Popcorn’s servers, so you can close the tab.
If Meta has shared no catalog, the panel says No catalog shared with Popcorn AI yet. Click Add a Commerce catalog in Meta: it opens Meta’s window to create one or choose one you already have. If you create one, choose Commerce as its vertical; it starts on Generic.

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If the catalog can’t connect

The panel names the problem and its one next step.

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What syncs to Meta

For every product in Popcorn the catalog receives the name, description, price and currency, the sale price when it is below the regular price, the product link, the images and availability:
  • Availability follows stock: a product with stock is sent as in stock, a product with none as out of stock.
  • Inactive products are sent as archived, so customers do not see them.
  • Products without an image get no placeholder. Meta rejects them, and they stay in the health card until you add a photo.
Syncs run after the catalog is connected, whenever products are added, changed or removed by a sync from your store (including Resync products under Integrations), whenever you delete a product or a variant in Products (it is removed from the catalog), and every night, when Popcorn compares its products with the Meta catalog and repairs differences. Sync products on the panel pushes everything again at once.

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Read the catalog health card

Once a catalog is connected, the panel shows the card below. It counts active products only. Catalog: followed by its name, and Last verified with a time, show which catalog it is and when Meta last confirmed it. Refresh reloads the numbers; “Couldn’t load catalog health” offers Try again. Reasons Meta gives for a rejected product, and the fix: If the catalog also receives products from another source in Meta, a warning says some products may show twice.

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Product sharing and Cart checkout

Two switches sit under the health card. Change them, then click Save changes; you see Settings saved.

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Product sharing

“When on, your AI agent sends products as WhatsApp catalog cards. When off, it sends product photos instead.” With it on, products go out as catalog cards, whether the agent recommends them or a teammate sends them from the Inbox:
  • One product becomes a single product card.
  • Several products become one product list message. WhatsApp allows 30 items per message, so larger selections are split into consecutive messages.
  • Products that are not live in the catalog (rejected, not synced, or still syncing), or that WhatsApp hasn’t approved yet, go out as image cards instead.
With it off, or while the catalog connection has expired, every product goes out as an image card.

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Cart checkout

“Customers can order from their WhatsApp cart.” When you save, Popcorn turns the WhatsApp cart on or off for every connected number. With it on, customers can add products from your cards to their WhatsApp cart and send the cart to you. It arrives in the conversation, and the agent continues with the order from there; see Orders. If Meta doesn’t accept the setting for a number, a banner says so (“Meta didn’t accept the cart setting for”) and offers Try again.

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When products go out as image cards

Two or more products that go out as image cards and each have a photo, a name and a link are sent together as one swipeable carousel, up to 10 cards per message. Each card shows the photo, the name, a line of description, the price and a button that opens the product page, or adds the product to the order when your agent is taking one. The rest go out on their own image card with the name, description, price and link, or as text when the product has no photo. The Inbox shows how many items reached the customer, for example 3 of 4 delivered to the customer, and marks each product that didn’t go as a catalog card with Sent as image, Sent in a carousel or Sent as text and the reason, such as “This product is still syncing to the catalog”.

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WhatsApp’s review of each product

WhatsApp reviews every product on its own before it can appear in a catalog card, which can take hours after the product reaches the catalog. Until WhatsApp approves it, the product goes out as an image card or in a carousel, and the Inbox gives the reason “WhatsApp hasn’t reviewed this product yet”, or “WhatsApp didn’t approve this product” if the review refused it. Popcorn reads the review after each sync, several times over the next two days and every night, and the product goes out as a catalog card once it is approved. The health card does not show this review: a product can count as live there and still be waiting for WhatsApp.

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If cards still do not appear

Check that Product sharing is on and saved, that the badge reads Live, that the product shows as live in the health card, and what the Inbox says under the product, for example that WhatsApp hasn’t reviewed it yet. See Channel troubleshooting.