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Shopify setup for Egypt: configure Cartsaver for EGP, Bosta, and WhatsApp COD

Cartsaver is built in Cairo, and the Egyptian Shopify market is where most of our store owners run. Egypt has its own carrier mix, currency, and tax setup compared to a generic Shopify install. This page walks you through the country-specific decisions on top of the standard Getting Started flow.

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”

You should already have:

  • An active Shopify store with EGP as the store currency.
  • A WhatsApp Business number you control (or a regular number you’re willing to migrate to WhatsApp Business).
  • Your shipping account with Bosta or whichever Egyptian courier you fulfill through.

1. Install Cartsaver

Section titled “1. Install Cartsaver”

Follow Install the app to add Cartsaver from the Shopify App Store. The install is free; there’s no charge until you decide to upgrade past the Free plan.

2. Confirm currency and tax

Section titled “2. Confirm currency and tax”

Cartsaver works in any Shopify-supported currency and pulls the order total straight from Shopify, so the WhatsApp confirmation message shows the same EGP amount the customer saw at checkout.

For VAT, Egypt applies a standard rate of 14% on most goods. Shopify’s tax engine handles that line on the order itself; Cartsaver renders the same totals on the invoice PDF it generates when a customer asks for it.

3. Choose WhatsApp as your default channel

Section titled “3. Choose WhatsApp as your default channel”

Open Choose a verification channel and pick WhatsApp. For Egyptian COD stores this is the right default for two reasons:

  • WhatsApp adoption in Egypt is effectively universal, with confirmation rates well above what SMS produces.
  • Egyptian SMS is informal and routinely ignored, especially from unrecognised sender names. Tap-to-confirm WhatsApp messages convert much harder than a numeric SMS code.

Cartsaver’s WhatsApp Business API is the recommended path. The Meta verification flow for Egyptian businesses is straightforward — you’ll supply a commercial registration document and verify the phone number. You can install Cartsaver and finish other setup steps while Meta approval is in progress.

4. Connect Bosta (or your courier) for fulfillment

Section titled “4. Connect Bosta (or your courier) for fulfillment”

Bosta is the dominant last-mile courier for Egyptian Shopify stores. Most merchants connect Bosta to Shopify via Bosta’s own Shopify app, which pushes COD orders into Bosta’s dashboard and writes tracking information back to Shopify orders.

Cartsaver doesn’t need any direct Bosta integration. It uses Shopify’s generic trackingInfo.url and trackingInfo.company fields, so when a customer replies to the WhatsApp message asking to track their order, Order Inquiry sends them whichever tracking link Shopify holds — Bosta, Aramex, Mylerz, or any other Egyptian courier you happen to use. There are no hardcoded carriers to pick from.

5. Enable WhatsApp Order Confirmation

Section titled “5. Enable WhatsApp Order Confirmation”

Follow Enable order verification to turn on WhatsApp Order Confirmation. For Egyptian COD volume, the typical setup is:

  • Confirmation Delay: 1–6 hours. Catches buyer’s-remorse cancels before a WhatsApp message goes out, which reduces wasted conversation cost.
  • Pending Order Action: start on Mark as High Risk for your first week, then move to Auto Cancel once you trust the flow.
  • Wait Time After Confirmation Message Sent: 12 hours is Cartsaver’s recommended setting.

See WhatsApp Order Confirmation for a full breakdown of what each setting does.

6. Run a test order

Section titled “6. Run a test order”

End on a real end-to-end test. Use your own phone number, place a test order paying with Cash on Delivery, and confirm the WhatsApp message arrives in EGP with the correct order total. Full walkthrough: Place a test order.

A note on non-COD orders

Section titled “A note on non-COD orders”

Shopify Payments is not available in Egypt, so most Egyptian stores plug in a local gateway (Paymob, Fawry, Kashier, or similar) for card-paid orders. Cartsaver’s WhatsApp confirmation flow runs on Cash on Delivery orders only — pre-paid orders go straight to fulfillment without a verification step. That matches what almost every Egyptian merchant actually needs: COD orders are the ones at risk of being fake, abandoned, or refused at the doorstep, not card- paid ones.

What’s next

Section titled “What’s next”

Once verification is live and stable, the high-impact follow-ons for Egyptian stores are:

For everything outside Egypt-specific context, the main Configuration section covers per-feature tuning.