Journey examples
WhatsApp journey examples for Shopify stores
The automations that ship with TopEdge, written out in full: what fires each one, what goes out, how long the gaps are, and what the sequence costs per order.
Every journey below is one TopEdge ships, with the Shopify trigger and the Meta template names it actually uses. They are worked examples rather than a feature list, because the question a merchant is really asking is what this looks like running on their store on a Tuesday.
Four journeys, in the order most stores publish them
Each one is bound to a real Shopify event. Open any for the full sequence, the branches and the per-message cost.
- abandoned_cartAbandoned cart recoveryThree reminders across 72 hours, each carrying the product, the ₹ total and a one-tap link back to the same checkout.See the full journey
- cod_order_placedCOD confirmationConfirm a Cash on Delivery order before the courier collects it, with confirm, reschedule and cancel branches, and a warehouse hold until a reply lands.See the full journey
- cod_prepaidCOD to prepaidA second message after the confirmation, offering a reason to pay now. Growth and Scale, because it needs a branching journey.See the full journey
- order_placed · order_fulfilledOrder status updatesPlaced, shipped with a tracking link, delivered, cancelled. The journey that stops "where is my order" arriving in the first place.See the full journey
What a journey is, and what it is not
A journey is an automation tied to something that happened in your store. Shopify says a checkout was abandoned, an order was placed, a COD order needs confirming, a parcel shipped. The journey picks that event up and sends an approved WhatsApp template carrying the real order detail, then waits to see what the customer does.
That last part is what separates it from a chatbot. A chatbot answers whatever is typed at it. A journey starts from a fact, already knows the order number, the items and the amount due, and can branch on a reply because it has somewhere to send the outcome: release the order, hold it, hand the thread to a human.
What each journey costs to run
Meta prices the category, not the message, and the gap is the single biggest lever on your WhatsApp bill. Transactional journeys are cheap to run and scale with orders. Promotional ones scale with audience and are worth rationing.
Rates are Meta’s own published India prices, billed by Meta to your WhatsApp Business account. TopEdge adds no markup on them.
Questions teams ask
- What is a WhatsApp journey?
- A journey is an automation bound to a Shopify event. The event fires, the journey sends one or more approved WhatsApp templates, and the customer’s reply can branch it. The difference between a journey and a chatbot is that a journey reads the order it is talking about.
- Which journey should a Shopify store publish first?
- Cart recovery if you are mostly prepaid, COD confirmation if return-to-origin is the problem that is costing you money. Publish one, watch it for a week, then add the second. Four journeys published on day one is four things you cannot attribute.
- Do these journeys cost extra?
- The journeys are part of the platform. What costs money is the messages, which Meta bills to your own WhatsApp Business account at ₹0.1150 for a utility template and ₹0.8631 for a marketing one in India. TopEdge adds no markup on those fees.
- Can I edit the steps, or are these fixed?
- They are starting points. Each one ships as pre-built templates you push to Meta for approval, and the timing, copy and branches are yours to change in the journey builder once they are approved.
Publish your first journey this week
Connect Shopify, push templates to Meta for approval, publish one journey. Free for 14 days, no card.