Reorder: Using WhatsApp to power a more profitable and efficient food ordering experience. Covid-19 accelerated digital transformation, pushing small businesses to shift to online sales. Discover strategies to navigate this challenge.

• Reorder, built by Generous Studio, enables small businesses to sell food directly through WhatsApp, automating the entire ordering and payment process.
• Bird's WhatsApp API and Sandbox allowed Reorder to prototype quickly and integrate advanced WhatsApp functionalities with ease.
• Businesses using Reorder can now automate menus, orders, and payments, removing the manual workload of managing WhatsApp groups.
• The solution helped restaurants and small shops pivot during COVID-19, maintaining revenue while focusing on food quality rather than tech operations.
• Reorder's success demonstrates how chat-based commerce creates a faster, more personal, and profitable food-ordering experience.

• What problem was Reorder solving?During the pandemic, many small businesses struggled to move online. Setting up full e-commerce stores like Shopify or WooCommerce was too costly and time-consuming.
• How does Reorder simplify this?Reorder lets customers order food directly through WhatsApp, automating menu sharing, order confirmation, payment, and delivery notifications.
• Why did Reorder choose Bird?Bird offered a WhatsApp Sandbox for prototyping, full API functionality, and competitive pricing, allowing Reorder to launch faster and scale efficiently.
• What impact did it have on businesses?Businesses reduced manual work, automated repetitive messaging, and improved customer experience — leading to higher efficiency and more repeat orders.
• What powers Reorder's automation?Bird's WhatsApp API and Flows, which handle conversation routing, payments, and confirmations without human intervention.

Due to the digital transformation required by Covid-19, many entrepreneurs and small businesses have been forced to switch to off-site and online sales – and that's a tough challenge.

• What powers Reorder’s automation? Bird’s WhatsApp API and Flows, which handle conversation routing, payments, and confirmations without human intervention.

How great does it sound to be able to order and sell your food through WhatsApp? Well, with Reorder, a result of the creative minds at generous.studio, you can do just that. Reorder simplifies the way hungry customers can order from businesses with a fully automated WhatsApp shop. It's faster for customers to get the food they want and it lets businesses focus more on creating beautiful, artisan food and less on the operations around it.

Comparing ways to sell food online

Method

What works well

What slows growth

Traditional webshop (Shopify/WooCommerce)

More professional + scalable storefront

Expensive + requires content + maintenance

DIY WhatsApp group

Easy to set up + customers already active

Manual admin: add/remove users, confirm payments, organize orders

Reorder WhatsApp shop

Fully automated ordering + payment + confirmations

Requires WhatsApp API integration, powered by Bird

This concept extends beyond food ordering—businesses across industries are discovering seven powerful strategies for in-chat checkout experiences that leverage stored payment methods to create frictionless purchasing.

Due to the digital transformation required by Covid-19, many entrepreneurs and small businesses have been forced to switch to off-site and online sales – and that's a tough challenge. For example, setting up a webshop via Shopify or Woo-Commerce requires a high-level of maintenance and content production, which is not only expensive but also time-intensive.

So instead, some shops got creative, manually making WhatsApp groups where customers could order from a daily menu. The success seen by many of these businesses was stunning — with some businesses seeing more success through a WhatsApp group than on their traditional web store. While easy to get going, this solution came with demands of its own — adding/deleting people, confirming who paid, moderating the content inside, etc. Reorder thus saw an opportunity to bring these companies a better solution.

"Bird allowed us to try the platform [WhatsApp Sandbox] and prototype, which showed us that this was a platform that would help solve our problem. And, Bird supported all the WhatsApp functionality we wanted."

[[highlightBlue]]— Director of Development at Generous, Guido Mallee[[/highlightBlue]]

As they worked to build a better WhatsApp ordering experience, Reorder realized it needed a partner for access to WhatsApp's Business APIs. During their market research, Bird became the clear choice for three key reasons: the ability to use WhatsApp Sandbox to quickly prototype a solution, the support of the required WhatsApp functionalities, and the competitive pricing. "Bird's WhatsApp Sandbox allowed us to try the platform and prototype, which showed us that this was a platform that would help solve our problem. Plus, Bird supported all the WhatsApp functionality we wanted to use," noted Guido Mallee, Director of Development at Generous.

In partnering with MessageBird, Reorder has been able to rapidly develop and bring its solution to market. Integrating with WhatsApp's APIs, Reorder offers their clients a robust WhatsApp shop to connect with customers that's free of the headaches that came with the simple WhatsApp group. "Before, shops added/deleted people manually to a large group," explained Mallee. "Now, end-customers send a direct message to one of our clients, and our platform automatically shares the menu, takes and confirms the order, sends a payment link, and finally a confirmation code when the payment is complete."

How Reorder automates the food ordering flow

Step

Automated via Bird

Result for business

Menu sharing

API delivers menu instantly

No daily manual updates

Order capture

Structured WhatsApp flows

Fewer mistakes, faster service

Payment & confirmation

Link + auto-verification

Faster checkout, less admin

Order follow-up

Notifications & status

Reduced support ticket volume

Under the hood, this all works with Bird's WhatsApp API and Flows.

Companies have been able to alleviate the strenuous, but important task of off-site selling with Reorder's platform. In just a matter of months, it's allowed businesses to continue focusing on producing well-crafted food, and not on how to build an online sales solution.

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