How NextGen Store turned WhatsApp into its best-performing storefront
NextGen Store is a fashion and lifestyle retailer selling across web, marketplaces and a growing social audience. Its problem was familiar to every e-commerce team: campaigns went out by email, questions came in on social, orders lived in the store backend, and delivery updates arrived from the courier. Four systems, four conversations, one confused customer.
The team's insight was simple. Their customers were already talking about products on WhatsApp, sharing screenshots and asking friends for opinions. Instead of pulling those customers to the website, NextGen decided to bring the store into the chat.
The chat becomes the storefront
Built on DLVRD's WhatsApp Business API, the new journey starts with a campaign: a catalog drop sent to opted-in customers with product cards they can browse without leaving the thread. Vaya, the AI agent, answers sizing and availability questions instantly. When a customer is ready to buy or wants advice, the conversation hands over to a human stylist with full context.
We stopped sending customers to the website. The chat is the store now, and it converts better than the site ever did.
The same thread carries the rest of the journey. Cart reminders go out automatically when a customer goes quiet, order confirmations and delivery updates land in the same conversation, and a follow-up message a week later invites a review or a look at the new arrivals. Nothing starts from zero, because the history never leaves the thread.
What the numbers said
Three months in, the WhatsApp storefront was outperforming every other channel. Campaign messages converted at 24.8 percent, an order of magnitude above the brand's email benchmarks. First replies now arrive in seconds instead of hours, and repeat purchases from chat customers rose by a third, because the next conversation always starts where the last one ended.
What's next
NextGen is extending the storefront with RCS for its Android-heavy markets and testing AI-driven product recommendations based on past purchases in the thread. The principle stays the same: one customer, one conversation, from first campaign to fifth order.
