You can ask for a yes before WhatsApp opens. Squadkin’s WhatsApp Chat Button documents a consent checkbox in the popup. Until the shopper checks it, Send stays disabled, and so do the agent links. You write the words next to the box. The app does not document a consent archive, a downloadable log of who ticked it, or a legal policy you can paste in unchanged.
Opening WhatsApp shares a conversation with a phone number the shopper may not have expected to reach. The checkbox is a pause on your storefront so they see that step. It is not a substitute for a privacy notice, and it is not a record you can hand to someone later and call complete. If you sell to people in the UK or the EU, have the person who owns your privacy text write the sentence before you turn the box on.
When to show the checkbox
Show it when the button is the first time the shopper is pointed at a specific phone number, especially if your page did not already explain that chat happens on WhatsApp. Product pages are the common case: someone is choosing a size, they tap a green button, and they are about to leave your site. A single sentence plus a tick makes that handoff visible.
You might leave the tick off only where the same explanation is already impossible to miss. The safer default is to leave the checkbox on and write a short line. The catalog does not say a new install forces the box on. Direct-link mode skips the panel, so it is a poor pair with a checkbox that lives in the popup. Use popup mode when the tick has to happen before Send.
The checkbox also covers the agent list. If shoppers choose Sales or Support, those links stay inactive until the box is checked. One consent line covers the choice. You do not get a separate documented tick per agent.
Wording you must write yourself
The catalog lets you supply the checkbox text. It does not ship a finished GDPR clause, a UK privacy sentence, or a translation. Write in the language of the storefront the shopper is reading. Say what will happen in plain words: that they will open WhatsApp, that the chat goes to your number, and where they can read your privacy notice. Keep the notice itself on a page you control. The checkbox is one line, not the notice.
- Name the channel: say WhatsApp, so the tick is not a vague “contact me.”
- Name the handoff: say they are leaving the shop to message your number.
- Point at the notice: a short pointer to your privacy page, which you maintain.
- Skip fake certainty: do not write “GDPR compliant” on the button. The catalog does not certify that.
If you trade in more than one language, translate the line yourself or with a person who can. The WhatsApp catalog does not document automatic translation of the widget into Spanish, Portuguese, or any other language. An English tick on a page you present as local is a weak explanation.
Match the line to your hours. Outside the weekday window you set, the popup text changes and the button dims. The button remains. If the offline sentence says you will reply tomorrow, the consent line should not say a person is waiting now.
What a webhook line does and does not mean
Shopify apps are expected to respond to privacy webhooks for customer data requests and deletion. A Built for Shopify note on a product page can list those webhooks. The WhatsApp feature catalog does not describe those calls as a stored history of checkbox ticks, and it does not describe a consent log you can export. Read a webhook line as plumbing for Shopify’s privacy callbacks. Do not read it as an archive of who opted into a chat.
What the catalog does describe is local to the browser. The checked state is persisted with localStorage, so the same browser can remember the tick. A different browser, cleared storage, or another person on the computer sees the box again. You cannot download a list of consents from this feature. If your process requires that list, you need a form that stores a submission. That is a different app. This tick is not that record.
The form builder’s own consent fields and webhooks are out of scope here. Do not assume a form submission and a chat tick land in the same database. They do not, on the evidence in the WhatsApp catalog.
UK and EU readers of your shop
This section is operational, not legal advice. The checkbox is one control. Google Analytics and Meta Pixel passthrough, if you enable them, send click events when the button is used. Those events belong in your privacy notice. The catalog does not write that notice, and it does not document a stored chat.
The phone number is visible once WhatsApp opens. The app does not hide it. Your privacy text should assume the shopper will see that number under WhatsApp’s own terms.
Page rules can keep the button off pages where a chat is the wrong ask, such as a page aimed at children or a checkout-adjacent URL you would rather leave alone. Device rules can limit it to mobile. Neither rule records consent. They only change where the button renders.
How to test the checkbox
Turn the checkbox on in a theme you can preview. Write a temporary sentence you will recognize, then replace it with the approved line before launch.
- Open the popup. Confirm Send is inactive, and that agent names do not open WhatsApp, until the box is checked.
- Check the box, send a test to your own number, and confirm the message arrives only in WhatsApp.
- Reload the same browser and confirm the tick is remembered. Then try a private window and confirm the box is back.
- Read the sentence out loud. If it promises a policy page, click that page and confirm it exists.
- Look in the app admin for a consent export. You should not find an archive. If you do find a report, it is outside this catalog and needs a separate check.
Retest after a theme change. The widget renders in a shadow DOM, so theme CSS will not style the checkbox. Use the app’s colors, or the custom CSS field inside the shadow DOM, if the box is hard to see.
Questions about the consent checkbox
Is the checkbox on by default?
The catalog documents the checkbox as a control you can use. It does not say a new install forces it on. Open the setting and confirm the state on your shop before you rely on it.
Does this store the consent in Shopify?
No archive is documented. The checked state is stored in the shopper’s browser. Shopify admin does not receive a consent record from this feature in the catalog.
Does the checkbox block the chat after hours?
It blocks Send until it is ticked, at any hour. Hours are separate: they change the popup text and dim the button. They do not remove the button, and they are not a consent log.
See the checkbox on the WhatsApp Chat Button page, then install WhatsApp Chat Button only after your own wording is ready. The control asks for a tick. You still own the legal text.