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The first thing that opens, not everything you sell
After this lesson you'll know what questions your customers keep asking on WhatsApp and in what order to add your products or services to the catalog, instead of dumping your whole inventory in at once.
By Yodai · Published on September 6, 2026 · Updated on October 12, 2026
You open your WhatsApp Business catalog, see the button to add a new item, and the first temptation is to dump everything in: the fifteen haircuts the salon offers, the eight hair color shades, manicures, waxing, the hair treatment. In one afternoon you upload forty listings and feel like you've done your homework.
The problem shows up the next day. Someone opens the catalog looking for the price of a haircut and has to scroll past sections they don't care about to find it. Or they don't find it, give up, and text you the exact question the catalog was supposed to answer without you having to type a word.
The first thing you upload isn't what sells best or what you most enjoy offering. It's what people ask about most. And you don't decide that by looking at the service menu taped to the wall: WhatsApp itself decides it, if you know how to read it.
Count the questions, not the inventory
Open your business WhatsApp and look at the last thirty conversations. Not the ones you started with an announcement or a promotion: the ones a customer opened because they wanted something. Write down what each one asked, not the answer you gave.
Look at which ones repeat. Picture a hair salon: out of those thirty conversations, twenty ask about cut and color, five about manicures, three about highlights, and two about everything else on the menu. That breakdown, not the full menu hanging on the wall of the shop, is your starting catalog.
It works the same way with products, only the question changes. An online clothing store doesn't get service questions, it gets questions about sizing and whether a specific color is in stock. If twenty-five of thirty conversations ask about the same three pieces from this season's line and the rest are spread across everything else in the warehouse, those three pieces are what open the catalog, with the sizes and colors listed right on the item so the question never even gets typed.
If your business is new and you don't have thirty conversations to look at yet, use the same approach with what you do have: the bookings you've already taken, the quotes you've already sent, or whatever you'd say without thinking if someone stopped you on the street and asked what you do. That first instinct is your starting point. Once the conversations start coming in, you do the real count.
- 1Open the last thirty conversations
Only the ones a customer started by asking something, not the ones you sent. - 2Write down the question, not the answer
Price of what, availability of what, whether or not you offer something. One line per conversation. - 3Group by service or product
Count how many times each one comes up. Tally marks on paper are enough, you don't need a spreadsheet. - 4Rank from most to least asked
The top of the list is the first thing that goes into the catalog, no exceptions for personal preference.
How many listings to upload on day one
The rule isn't a fixed number of products, it's a single screen: what your customer sees when they open the catalog before scrolling. In a Nielsen Norman Group eye-tracking study published in 2018, with 120 people looking at web pages on a 1920 x 1080 pixel computer screen, about 57% of the time they spent looking at the pages stayed on what was visible without scrolling, and 74% stayed within the first two screens. It's a study of desktop websites, not WhatsApp or mobile, so take it as a clue rather than a hard measurement: its advice is to save the top spot for what matters most and leave secondary items further down.
If what people see first already answers what they ask about most, you've won: whoever's looking for that price finds it without texting you, as long as you've added it to the listing. According to WhatsApp's help center, price is an optional field and can only be added in some countries. And trying to find the answer on their own is the first thing most people do: according to customer service data that Matthew Dixon and other authors published in 2017 in Harvard Business Review, 81% of customers across every industry try to solve things on their own before talking to a person.
If you have forty services and you upload all forty on day one without ranking them, whatever the customer is looking for has to compete with thirty-something other listings for that first screen. Upload the ones that ranked highest in your count first. The rest can wait until next week, or until someone asks about them specifically. That doesn't mean hiding the rest of the catalog forever, just not starting there. And if you want to change the order later, WhatsApp's help center explains how to reorder the collections in your catalog and, from your phone, the items within each collection.
You don't have to get it right the first time, either. This month's count of thirty conversations doesn't have to match the one you'll do two months from now, especially if the season changes or a new service joins the menu. What doesn't change is the method: when something feels off, recount before you reorder by guesswork. WhatsApp's help center itself recommends keeping your catalog updated so customers see what's current in your business.
What gets asked about most isn't always what's most profitable
The catalog's first job is answering the question that already exists; pushing margin is the second step, not the first
Maybe what people ask about most is the eighteen-dollar haircut, and what you really want to sell is the eighty-dollar keratin treatment. The temptation is to put the pricier item first, so it shows up sooner. Don't.
The catalog isn't a showcase for margins. First you answer the question that already exists; then, once the customer is already in the catalog, you place next to it whatever you'd like them to also consider. That doesn't happen in the first listing, it happens in the second or third, once they've already come in looking for something else and their attention is on you.
- Looks more complete from the start
- The customer has to search through listings they don't care about
- What gets asked about most can end up in position twenty
- Only the listings you already know people are looking for
- The customer sees the price without texting you
- The rest gets added when someone asks about it
Which one to pick: Start with what gets asked about most. Upload the full catalog only once your conversations show real demand for each listing; if you upload first and ask questions later, the odd stuff stays on top and what actually sells gets buried below.
Next week we'll look at how many sections that catalog needs so it doesn't end up as a warehouse of folders.
- You've counted your last thirty WhatsApp conversations and you know what keeps coming up
- You know how many listings to post on day one: the ones that fit on one screen without scrolling
- Your catalog starts with what gets asked about most, not with profit margin or inventory order
Cases to decide
Answer before opening each one. If one gives you trouble, go back to the section that explains it.
1. You're opening a bakery and you don't have any WhatsApp conversations to look at yet. You have twenty products in your kitchen. What do you post on day one?
The handful you'd name without thinking if someone asked you on the street what you do, like a birthday cake or custom cookie orders, not the whole catalog: without conversations to count, your own instinct about what people look for first is the best data you've got.
2. You've had your catalog up for two months, and your conversations show that 70% of people ask about the same $40 facial treatment, but you want to push the four-session package for $150 because it has a better margin. Do you change the order of your catalog?
Not on the first listing. The $40 treatment stays at the top because that's the real question people are asking; the $150 package goes right below it, or gets offered once the customer has already come in asking about the single treatment, so you're not making them dig through listings they didn't ask for.
3. Your salon has had all forty items from your inventory listed since day one, and you're still getting the same pricing questions on WhatsApp that your catalog already answers. What do you check first?
The order of what shows up first when the catalog opens, not the whole catalog: if cut and color really are two out of every three questions and they're not near the top, the customer won't see them right when they open it, and they'll likely keep texting you about whatever you already posted.
With the order settled, all that's left is to organize everything else: not into your storeroom's folders, but into the three sections your customer recognizes without thinking when they open the catalog.
Sources
- How to create and maintain a catalog. WhatsApp Help Center, accessed October 2026.
- Catalog information. WhatsApp Help Center, accessed October 2026.
- How to create and manage a collection in your catalog. WhatsApp Help Center, accessed October 2026.
- Scrolling and Attention. Nielsen Norman Group (Therese Fessenden), 2018.
- Kick-Ass Customer Service. Harvard Business Review (Matthew Dixon, Lara Ponomareff, Scott Turner, and Rick DeLisi), 2017.
In Yodai the WhatsApp bot answers with your prices and your hours, and hands the chat over when someone asks for a person. See how the WhatsApp bot for your business works.
NextThree sections, not a storeroom of folders