Explainer
Does a Bahamian shop need an online store or a WhatsApp catalogue?
For shops that take orders in WhatsApp messages
Retail
Bahamian shops can reach the country on every door
The 2026 Bahamas Digital Readiness Index checked 399 shops on Google Business Profile, website, Facebook Page (not a personal profile) and WhatsApp.
Share of 399 businesses with each door open
- Google Business Profile : 57.4%. Country 60.5%.
- Website : 29.8%. Country 38.2%.
- Facebook Page : 31.3%. Country 33.2%.
- WhatsApp : 14.5%. Country 22.7%.
Average score 28.3 of 100 · rank 8 of 8
The 2026 index
WhatsApp is where Bahamian shops have the most room.
14.5%
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94.5%
of these shops have a phone number in public listings, the numbers the index checked for WhatsApp.
In a 2021 survey for URCA, the Bahamian communications regulator, more than nine in ten people asked had used WhatsApp to call or message in the past month. For most shops the index did not find the listed number on WhatsApp, so a shopper cannot message a question about price or stock. Registering a WhatsApp Business number costs nothing, and setting it up with photos and prices takes an evening or more.
The Facebook Page and WhatsApp count most for shops.
Shoppers see a product on the shop’s Facebook Page and ask about it on WhatsApp.
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Google Business Profile
Recommended · 19 points
A Google Business Profile helps a shopper nearby find the shop, its hours and its reviews. The index counts it less here, because much of a shop’s selling can happen on its Facebook Page and WhatsApp.
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Website
Optional · 13 points
The index counts a website least for a shop, because a shopper can browse on the Facebook Page and buy on WhatsApp without one.
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Facebook Page
Required · 34 points
The Facebook Page is where a shop posts what came in and a shopper browses it, so the index counts it as much as WhatsApp here.
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WhatsApp
Required · 34 points
A shopper who saw the product on your Facebook Page buys it on WhatsApp. They ask about stock, agree the price, send a location and arrange delivery in the same conversation.
Required: central to how this industry’s customers find, trust and contact a business, so it carries the most points.
Recommended: useful, but customers can still find and contact the business through its other open doors.
Optional: this industry’s customers rarely use it to find or choose a business, so it carries the fewest points.
The points on the four cards add up to 100, the most any business can score in any industry.
How shops compare with the country, door by door.
Shops sit close to the country on the Google Business Profile and Facebook Page, with more room on the website and WhatsApp.
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Retail open share by door · the 2026 index All eight industries, compared
Nearly half the Google listings found for Bahamian shops are unclaimed, more than across the country.
Claiming a listing lets a shop correct its details and answer its reviews.
Nearly half of found listings are not claimed by the business.
- Claimed by the business 123
- Not claimed by the business 106
Of the 229 found listings where claim status could be determined. A found listing counts as an open door whether or not it is claimed. Across the country, nearly four in ten are not claimed.
For a shop, that means hours that are right on a holiday, photos and products from what is in stock, and a reply to each review. Claiming it is free and starts from the listing itself, and Google’s check takes days to a week or more.
A shop can send a payment link in the WhatsApp chat where the shopper asked.
In a Central Bank survey on how people pay, cash was the most-used way to pay for 44% of people, and just under half paid most often by card or online transfer. WhatsApp’s own in-chat payments work only in India, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia. Here, a shop sends a payment link from its bank or a payment app, and the shopper pays on the phone with no website needed. The Central Bank aims to launch its Fast Payment System by the first quarter of 2027, and says it will cut a bank transfer from hours, or sometimes days, to an instant. So a shop’s WhatsApp chat can already be where it answers the question, agrees the price and takes the money.
Sources: Central Bank of The Bahamas, Selected Survey Results on Paper Cheques Usage in The Bahamas, 2023, on how people pay · WhatsApp Help Center, read 25 September 2026 · Bahamian bank and payment app webpages, read 25 September 2026 · Central Bank of The Bahamas, 30 March 2026, its explanatory note on fast payment systems of 31 March 2026, and 29 July 2026
Can you use Stripe in The Bahamas? How to take card payments online
Of the Four Digital Doors, a shop opens the Facebook Page and WhatsApp first.
A shop with neither door yet starts with the Facebook Page, so shoppers have something to see, and a shop already posting there opens WhatsApp next.
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Facebook Page
Required
Shoppers see what came in here, even when they were not looking for you. For a shop, the Facebook Page is the shop window.
An evening if the photos are to hand, longer from nothing
- Set it up properly
- Create a Facebook Page for the shop. Do not run the business from a personal profile. Fill in the category, About section and hours. Post a first product with its price.
Make it work harder
Post new stock as your own photos and short videos, price and WhatsApp number in the caption. Add the WhatsApp button so a question can become an order. Share posts as the Page in local groups that allow Pages. Meta Business Suite shows which posts brought messages.
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WhatsApp Business
Required
Shoppers talk to you here. “Is it in stock, in my size?” is answered in the chat, and the price and delivery are agreed there.
Short to register, an evening or more to set up
- Set it up properly
- Register WhatsApp Business on a number of its own. Fill in the business profile with hours and address. Catalogue each product with a photo, price in the description.
Make it work harder
Keep catalogue items true, with each price in its description, and mark what is sold out. A shopper’s cart arrives as an order message, so send a payment link from your bank or a payment app to close it. Put the shop’s name beside the number everywhere.
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Google Business Profile
Recommended
Shoppers nearby find you here. Your hours, address and reviews show when someone searches for what you sell.
Short to start, days to a week or more for Google’s check, an evening to fill in
- Set it up properly
- Claim and verify it. Search your shop on Google and complete the check Google asks for, then add hours, address and a photo of the shopfront. Claiming is free.
Make it work harder
Add products with prices in Google’s product editor, and post the week’s arrivals. Keep holiday hours right. Ask every shopper for a review and answer each one. Once a month, read its count of calls and direction requests.
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Website
Optional
This is the one door you own. It earns its cost once orders come in faster than you can handle them in messages.
A few evenings with a builder, weeks with a professional
- Set it up properly
- One webpage is enough to start: name, hours, address, what you sell, a WhatsApp link. A website builder or a professional. Domain and hosting carry a yearly cost.
Make it work harder
Put the WhatsApp link on every webpage. Keep prices the same as in the catalogue. Add an order button once the shop is ready for it, with a payment link from your bank or a payment app. Check every few months that it loads.
After the doors are open
Open doors need a weekly habit: the same hours, prices and contact number on every door, and every message answered. A shopper can see the product on your Facebook Page, order in WhatsApp Business and find the shop on your Google Business Profile, and a website earns its place once orders outrun the chat. Your WhatsApp chats show which products people ask about and which customers come back, and a claimed Google Business Profile shows the searches that found the shop.
Need help opening these doors or getting more from them? DDigiLeads does this work for Bahamian businesses. Talk to us
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The Bahamas Digital Readiness Index found that most Bahamian shops already have a Google Business Profile.