How to Get Your First 10 Orders on ChatPadi
How to Get Your First 10 Orders on ChatPadi
Your store is set up. Your products are listed. Ama is ready. Now you need customers. This guide is a practical, step-by-step action plan for getting your first 10 orders, covering exactly what to do in your first week, where to share your link, and what works for African sellers building momentum from zero.
Setting up a ChatPadi store takes an hour. Getting your first order requires one more thing: people need to know your store exists and tap your link. That part does not happen automatically. It requires deliberate, specific action in the first few days after your store goes live.
The good news is that most sellers already have the audience they need. They have WhatsApp contacts, Instagram followers, Facebook friends, and regular customers from their existing manual selling. The first 10 orders almost always come from people who already know you, or from people close to those who know you. Getting those orders is a matter of telling the right people, in the right way, that your store is now open.
This guide tells you exactly how to do that.
Before you start sharing: Test your store first. Visit chatpadi.app/store/yourname on your own phone. Ask Ama a question about one of your products. Try going through to the payment step. If anything looks wrong, fix it before sharing the link publicly. Your first impressions matter and you cannot unsee a broken experience.
Where Your First 10 Orders Come From
Before listing specific actions, it helps to understand the realistic sources of your first orders so you focus your energy in the right places.
Orders 1 to 3 will almost certainly come from people who already know you. Your existing WhatsApp contacts, current customers who buy from you manually, or close friends and family who want to support your launch. These first orders are critical not just for revenue but for testing that your entire system works end to end under real conditions.
Orders 4 to 7 will likely come from your wider social circle. Instagram followers who have seen your content before, people who were sent your link by someone who already ordered, or customers you have served once or twice in the past who see you posting about your new store.
Orders 8 to 10 will come from new people. Someone who discovered you through a share, a new follower who found you from a hashtag or a mutual connection, or a customer who googled something you sell and found your store link shared somewhere.
Understanding this progression helps you prioritise: start with your warmest audience, create the conditions for them to refer others, and build outward from there.
Eight Actions That Get Your First Orders
The single highest-leverage action you can take immediately is updating every bio link you currently have to point to your ChatPadi store. Do this before anything else.
- Instagram: Edit Profile → Website → paste your store link
- WhatsApp Business: Settings → Business Profile → Website → paste your store link
- Facebook Page: Edit Page Info → Website → paste your store link
- TikTok: Edit Profile → Website → paste your store link
From this moment, every person who visits any of your profiles and looks for a way to buy has a direct path to your store. This is passive traffic generation that requires no further effort after the initial setup.
Post a clear, specific announcement that your store is now open. Not “check out my new store”. That is vague and easy to scroll past. Tell people exactly what you sell, that they can now browse and buy online, and what the link is.
What works for an Instagram post or WhatsApp Status announcement:
- A clear photo of your best-selling product
- A caption that says “My store is now open. Browse my full range and order directly at [your store link]. Ama handles everything instantly.”
- A reminder of what you sell and who it is for: “Fresh Ghanaian jollof, soups, and party packs delivered across Accra”
- A simple CTA: “Tap the link in bio to browse and order”
Post the same announcement on WhatsApp Status. A significant portion of your existing customers follow your Status and this is often where the first direct orders come from after a launch post.
A personal WhatsApp message to someone who already knows you and has bought from you before converts far better than any social media post. Identify the 20 people who have bought from you most recently or most often. Send each one a short, personal message.
The message that works:
Personal messages feel different from a broadcast. The recipient knows it was sent specifically to them. This distinction matters and shows in the response rate.
The fastest way to reach new customers in Africa is through referrals. When someone from your personal network shares your store link with their contacts, the new audience receives it with a built-in trust endorsement: someone they already trust recommended it.
After sending the personal messages in Action 3, follow up with the people who respond positively with a simple ask: “If you know anyone who might like [what you sell], please feel free to share the link with them. It would really help.”
Also post on your Instagram Story with a share CTA: “If you have ordered from me before and loved it, sharing this story or my store link with a friend is the best thing you can do to support the business. Thank you.”
A time-limited or quantity-limited launch offer gives people a reason to order now rather than later. The offer does not need to be a large discount. It can be:
- Free delivery on the first 10 orders placed through the store
- A small bonus item included with every order this week
- 10% off for customers who order before a specific date
- A priority fulfilment guarantee for launch week orders
Announce the offer clearly in your launch post and in your personal messages: “To celebrate opening my online store, the first 10 customers get free delivery. Tap the link to order before they are gone.”
The scarcity of “first 10 customers” is genuine and specific. It creates a real reason to act quickly without requiring a large ongoing discount.
One launch post is not enough. Post at least once daily for the first week after launching. Each post does not need to announce your store. Most posts should just be excellent product content: clear photos, short videos, before-and-after for services, behind-the-scenes preparation. Your store link is in your bio. The content’s job is to make people curious enough to tap it.
Content that consistently drives profile visits and bio link clicks:
- Short video of a product being made, prepared, or used
- A “what I have available this week” photo grid
- A customer testimony or review (with permission)
- A “how to order” Story that ends with a link sticker to your store
- A product comparison: “which one would you choose?” poll
Facebook groups, WhatsApp community groups, and Telegram channels focused on buying and selling in your city or niche are active discovery channels for African sellers. Most major cities and towns have “Buy and Sell [City Name]” groups with thousands of members actively looking for products.
What works in these groups:
- A clear product photo with price and your store link
- A short, specific description: “Handmade Ankara bags, GHS 85 to GHS 105, delivery across Greater Accra. Browse and order directly: [your store link]”
- Responding quickly to comments and questions (Ama handles the direct messages, but group comment replies are still you)
Avoid posting the same promotional message in multiple groups simultaneously. Group admins notice and remove repetitive promotional posts. Post in two or three relevant groups and adapt the message slightly for each one’s focus.
When your first orders come in and you fulfil them, ask for feedback. A simple message: “How did you find the ordering experience? And how do you like the [product]?” Most happy customers will reply positively. Screenshot those replies (with permission) and post them.
Social proof does more to convert new customers than almost any other content:
- A photo of a customer holding or using your product (with permission)
- A screenshot of a positive WhatsApp conversation about an order
- A customer’s Instagram Story tagged to your account
- A simple text review: “Delivered on time, exactly as described, will order again”
Post this social proof within 24 to 48 hours of your first fulfilled orders. Someone who is on the fence about ordering is far more likely to do so after seeing that real people have already bought, received their order, and are happy with it.
Your First Week Action Plan
What to Do When Ama Starts Getting Conversations
As you share your link and people start visiting your store, Ama begins handling conversations. Your job at this stage is to monitor and learn, not to intervene.
What to watch in your dashboard during your first week
Check your dashboard twice daily during your first week. Not to manage conversations (Ama handles those) but to learn from them:
- Which products are getting the most questions? If three conversations this week all asked about sizes for the same product, that product’s description is missing size information. Add it.
- Which questions is Ama not answering well? If you see a conversation where Ama said she did not have information about something, check your catalogue. The information was probably missing. Add it and Ama will answer it correctly next time.
- Which conversations converted to orders and which did not? If a conversation ended without an order, look at the last few messages to understand why. Was it a delivery area you do not cover? A payment method you have not enabled? A product that turned out to be out of stock?
- How quickly are manual MoMo payments arriving? If customers are paying but you are only confirming hours later, they are waiting for their confirmation email for hours. Speed up your MoMo verification check to confirm faster.
The first week of conversations is a learning exercise. Every gap in Ama’s answers points to a gap in your catalogue or policies that, when fixed, makes every future conversation better. For a detailed guide on how to add and improve product information, see How to Add Products to Your ChatPadi Storefront.
OurInternetBusiness.com also covers how to build a simple tracking system for your first orders: How to Turn a Google Form into a Free Order System, which some sellers use alongside their ChatPadi dashboard during early stages.
Common First-Week Mistakes
What Happens After the First 10 Orders
The first 10 orders are the hardest because they require deliberate effort with no social proof, no existing word of mouth, and no evidence that the store works. Every order after that is easier because:
- You have customers who can refer others
- You have social proof to post and share
- Your product descriptions have been improved by the questions Ama could not answer
- Your delivery and fulfilment process has been tested and refined
- You have a track record that builds credibility with new customers
The transition from 10 orders to 50 orders is primarily a content and referral game: continue posting product content consistently, share customer social proof actively, and make it easy for happy customers to tell others. The transition from 50 orders to 500 is where paid promotion (Instagram ads, TikTok, WhatsApp broadcast campaigns to your opted-in list) becomes worth adding to an already-working organic strategy.
The most reliable path from 10 to 100 orders: Deliver the first 10 exceptionally well. Fast fulfilment, accurate orders, prompt communication on any issue. A customer who receives their order faster than expected, exactly as described, and with no friction is the best marketing asset you have. They come back. They tell people. They post about it. Everything flows from the quality of the first few experiences you create.
Common Questions
What if I have no social media followers?
Start with your phone contacts, not your followers. The personal message strategy in Action 3 works entirely from your existing WhatsApp contacts, no follower count required. Most sellers have more potential first customers in their phone contacts than they realise: current and past customers, friends who know what you sell, family who want to support you, and acquaintances who have shown interest in your products in conversation. Start there.
How long should it take to get the first 10 orders?
For sellers with an existing customer base (people currently buying from you manually on WhatsApp), the first 10 orders can come within 48 to 72 hours of launch if you follow the actions in this guide. For sellers starting from scratch with no existing customers, expect one to three weeks. Either way, the actions are the same. The timeline varies based on your existing audience size, not the quality of the plan.
Should I run paid ads to get my first orders?
Not initially. Paid advertising (Instagram ads, Facebook ads) is more effective once you have a tested store, proven products, and social proof. Running ads to a new store with no reviews, no social proof, and an untested fulfilment process wastes the ad budget. Get your first 10 organic orders, fix anything that needs fixing, build some social proof, and then consider paid promotion as an amplifier of a working organic strategy rather than a substitute for one.
What if someone visits my store and does not order?
This is normal. Most visitors do not buy on their first visit. What matters is that they saw your store, your products, and your brand, and that Ama gave them a good experience if they engaged. A visitor who leaves without ordering may come back when they are ready to buy, or share your link with someone who is. Consistent content keeps your store visible and gives people multiple reasons to return.
Your Store Is Ready. Your First Order Is Next.
Set up your ChatPadi store for free, follow the actions in this guide, and get your first 10 orders this week. Ama handles every conversation. You focus on fulfilment.
Start Your Free StoreFree to start. No credit card required. First orders typically arrive within days of sharing your link.
