How to Sell on Social Media Without a Website: Build a Product Catalogue That Sells

You do not need a full online store to sell on social media without a website. Plenty of small businesses sell every week through Instagram, TikTok and Facebook with nothing more than good posts, a link in their bio and a WhatsApp number. What separates the sellers who get steady orders from the ones who get endless "how much?" messages is usually one thing: a clear product catalogue.

This guide shows you how to build one. You will choose which products to list, take photos that work on a phone screen, write names and prices people understand at a glance, handle sizes and flavours without confusion, put everything on one catalogue page and let customers send a complete order to your WhatsApp.

If you are new to bio links, our guide to what a link in bio is explains the basics first.

What social commerce looks like without a website

Social commerce is selling directly where people already spend their time: a customer sees your product in a Reel, a TikTok or a Facebook post and buys in a few taps. Big brands do this with built-in shop features and full online stores. A small seller can get most of the benefit with a much lighter setup:

1. Posts and videos create interest in a product.
2. One link in your profile takes people to your catalogue.
3. The catalogue shows photos, names, prices and options.
4. A cart turns the customer's choices into a written order.
5. WhatsApp is where you confirm, take payment and arrange delivery.

Neither option is "better". If you sell a few dozen orders a week, a catalogue page and a good chat routine are often enough, and you can always add a store later. For a deeper look at the WhatsApp side, read how to sell on WhatsApp from Instagram and TikTok.

Step 1: Decide what goes in your catalogue

The biggest mistake is listing everything. A phone screen shows only a few products at a time, and every extra item makes the decision harder.

Start with your best sellers

Look at the last month or two of orders and chats. Which products do people ask about most? Which ones can you make or restock reliably? Those go first. A good starting catalogue for a small seller is roughly 8 to 20 products.

Group products the way customers think

Customers do not think in your internal codes. They think "something for Raya", "a gift under RM50" or "the spicy one". Use section titles to group the list:

• By type: Cookies, Cakes, Drinks
• By occasion: Raya sets, Birthday, Corporate gifts
• By price: Under RM30, Gift boxes, Bundles

Leave out what you cannot deliver

If a product is out of stock for weeks, hide it rather than leaving it up with "sold out" in the name. Customers who tap and find nothing available rarely come back to check again.

Step 2: Take product photos that sell on a phone

On social media your photo is the shop window. You do not need a studio, but you do need consistency.

A simple, repeatable setup

• Light: shoot near a window in daylight, with the light coming from the side. Avoid the ceiling light and the flash.
• Background: one plain surface you reuse for every product: a white sheet, a wooden board or a coloured card.
• Angle: pick one or two angles (straight on, or from above for food) and keep them for the whole catalogue.
• Framing: fill most of the frame with the product and leave a little space around it, because catalogue photos are often cropped to a square.
• Scale: for items where size matters, add one photo with a hand or a common object next to the product.

Marketplace rules can be a useful checklist even if you never sell there. Google's product image requirements for shopping listings, for example, are a good reminder that a product photo should show the actual item clearly, not a logo or a busy collage.

Photos to avoid

• Heavy filters that change the real colour of the product
• Text, prices or watermarks over the photo (they are hard to read when small and go out of date)
• Different backgrounds and lighting for every product, which makes the catalogue look messy
• Borrowed photos from suppliers that do not match what the customer receives

Step 3: Write product names, descriptions and prices

Short, plain text sells better than clever text, especially on a small screen.

Names people can scan

A good product name says what it is and the one detail that matters: "Chocolate chip cookies, 1 jar", "Batik kaftan, navy", "Sambal bilis, 250 g". Put the most important word first, because long names get cut off on phones.

Descriptions that answer questions

Use the short description to answer the question you hear most often about that product: size, weight, number of pieces, ingredients, allergens, how long it keeps, or how long it takes to make. One or two short lines are enough. On biolink.my each product has a name (up to 80 characters) and an optional description (up to 160 characters), which forces you to keep it tight.

Prices that build trust

Show the real price on the page. Hidden prices make people message you just to ask, and many never do. If delivery is extra, say so in the shop note ("Delivery from RM8 within the Klang Valley") instead of surprising people later.

Step 4: Handle variants without confusing buyers

Sizes, colours, flavours and pack sizes are where catalogues get messy. Choose one of these two rules and apply it to the whole catalogue.

Rule A: one listing per variant

Use this when variants have different prices or different photos. "Kaftan, size S-M, RM89" and "Kaftan, size L-XL, RM95" become two products. The customer picks exactly what they want and the order arrives with no follow-up questions.

Rule B: one listing, options in the description

Use this when variants have the same price. List the options in the description ("Flavours: original, spicy, cheese") and confirm the choice in the chat. Keep the number of options small, and ask for the choice in your first reply.

Some link-in-bio tools, including biolink.my, keep products simple (name, description, price and photo) rather than offering variant pickers. That keeps the page fast and easy to use, and the two rules above cover most small catalogues. Whatever you choose, confirm the exact variant in WhatsApp before you take payment.

Step 5: Put your catalogue on one page

Your catalogue needs a home that every post can point to. A link-in-bio page with a shop does this without building a website. Here is how it works on biolink.my:

1. Claim your page and pick a template. There are four, each with its own look: Geo Sketch, Fresh Teal, Golden Hour (made with cafés, food and small shops in mind) and Bold Transit. You can browse them all on the templates page.
2. Set up the hero: your photo or logo, business name, a one-line bio that says what you sell and where you deliver, and your social icons.
3. Add a WhatsApp order block in the Shop section of your dashboard. Add each product with a photo, name, price and optional description, and enter your WhatsApp number with the country code.
4. Group the page with section titles, and add links to anything else customers ask about: a size guide, your delivery areas or your Google Maps location.
5. Turn on the action bar if you like: a small bar of quick actions at the bottom of the screen with buttons like Order, WhatsApp, Call and Share, so the order button is always one tap away.
6. Publish, then copy your page address (biolink.my/@yourname) into every profile.

Add the extras that answer questions

• Countdown: for pre-order cut-offs and festive batches, so the deadline on your page matches the one in your posts.
• Payment options: a QR block for your DuitNow QR code, or a payment link from your own provider, so customers know how they will pay before they message.
• Lead form: for "tell me when it is back" or custom order requests.
• Scheduled blocks: set a block to appear and disappear on set dates, which is handy for a festive menu or a weekend promotion.

Step 6: Let the cart send the order to WhatsApp

This is the step that saves the most time. Instead of a customer opening WhatsApp and typing "hi, how much is the kuih set?", they pick items and quantities on your page and tap once. WhatsApp opens with a message like this already written:

• A greeting with your shop name
• Each item with its quantity and price
• The total
• A note that it came from your biolink.my page

Under the hood this uses WhatsApp's own click to chat links, which open a chat with a prefilled message. The customer can still add a note (their address, a flavour choice, a delivery date) before sending.

On your side, you get a complete order in the first message. Your dashboard also keeps a simple log of carts sent to WhatsApp, so you can see which products people try to order even when a chat does not turn into a sale.

Use the WhatsApp Business catalogue as well

The free WhatsApp Business app has its own catalogue feature, described in WhatsApp's guide to shopping on WhatsApp. It is useful for customers who are already chatting with you. Your catalogue page does a different job: it catches new visitors from Instagram, TikTok and Facebook before they have ever messaged you. Using both, with the same names and prices, works well.

Step 7: Promote the catalogue on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook

A catalogue only sells if people find it. The rule is simple: every post points to the same link, and the link opens on the product the post is about.

Instagram explains how to add a link to your profile, and TikTok covers website links in its guide to setting up your profile. Link options on both apps can change and depend on your account, so check the current help pages if a field is missing.

Content that sends people to the catalogue

• One product per post with the price in the caption
• Behind the scenes of making or packing orders
• "Which one would you pick?" posts comparing two products
• Restock and pre-order announcements with the cut-off date
• A pinned "how to order" video that walks through your page in 20 seconds

For more ways to get people to your page, see 15 online marketing tactics for sellers.

Step 8: Use your data to improve the catalogue

After a few weeks you will know more than any guide can tell you. On biolink.my, the Analytics section of your dashboard shows page views, clicks, click-through rate, where visitors came from (traffic sources) and which countries and devices they used. Each block in the editor also shows its clicks over the last 30 days, and the WhatsApp order log shows which products went into carts.

Use that to make simple decisions:

• Products that get carts but few sales: check the price, delivery fee or how quickly you reply.
• Products nobody adds: improve the photo and name, move them down, or remove them.
• A platform that sends most visitors: post there more, and make sure the products you feature there are near the top of the page.
• Visitors but few carts: your page might be confusing. Ask a friend to order something while you watch.

Common catalogue mistakes to avoid

• "PM for price" everywhere. It slows everyone down and loses impatient buyers.
• Too many products at launch. Start with your best sellers and add more once orders are steady.
• Inconsistent photos. Mixed backgrounds and lighting make a small shop look careless.
• Out-of-date prices or stock. Update the page when you change anything; it is the one place customers trust.
• Variants left unclear. Pick rule A or rule B and stick to it.
• No delivery information. State areas, fees and lead times in the shop note.

Why biolink.my is free for sellers

biolink.my is free for everyone: no paid plans, no fees on your sales and no commission on WhatsApp orders. The platform is paid for by brand partners and sponsors, and the only ad you will see is one small card labelled "Sponsored" at the bottom of public pages, never between your products or links. Payments go directly from your customers to you; biolink.my never touches the money. You can see everything that is included on the features page.

Conclusion

To sell on social media without a website, you need fewer things than you think: a short list of your best products, consistent photos, plain names and real prices, a clear rule for variants, one catalogue page and a cart that drops the full order into your WhatsApp. Build it once, link it from every post, and improve it a little each week based on what people actually order.

Find more guides like this on the biolink.my blog.