Grocery store, neighborhood shop: how to get paid remotely

Why remote payment matters for a neighborhood shop

A grocery store, a butcher, a pastry shop or a small general store lives first and foremost on foot traffic. But part of your sales already happens away from the counter: the neighbor who orders by phone and has her shopping delivered, the loyal customer who pays for the groceries of his parents still living in the neighborhood, the cake or holiday basket order that calls for a down payment, the coffee shop next door that buys from you in bulk and pays by the week.

In every one of these cases, the question is the same: how do you get paid without the customer coming in, without chasing change and without delivering on credit by default? The answers exist, and none of them requires a payment terminal or an online store. You just have to pick the right move for each situation, and stick to it.

Four ways to collect from a customer who isn't there

1. A payment link sent by WhatsApp or SMS

From the chari.ma app, you generate a payment link and send it in the conversation. The customer clicks, pays by card or from their chari.ma account, and the money lands in your account. It's the simplest reflex for an order placed by message. How it works is explained on the Collect a payment page.

2. A bank transfer to your RIB

Your chari.ma account comes with its own bank details: RIB, IBAN and BIC. A customer who prefers to go through their bank (a company, an association, a coffee shop paying its suppliers) can send you a bank transfer from any Moroccan bank. You'll find these details in the app and can share them in two taps (see your account and your IBAN).

3. The QR code, at delivery time

When you or your delivery person hand over the order, the customer scans your QR code with their phone and pays on the spot. No cash to count on the doorstep, no change to give back, and the payment shows up right away in your history.

4. Cash, without handling it yourself

Some customers only pay in cash. If they have the chari.ma app, they can top up their account at a cash agency near them, then pay you by link or by QR. For a customer who doesn't have the app, a platform like ChariPay lets them pay in cash at an agency of the Chari network, with a reference: more on that below.

Step by step: a remote order, paid before it's delivered

1. Write down the order and set the exact amount, including delivery if there is any.
2. Create the payment link in the app, with a clear description: the customer's name and what they ordered.
3. Send the link in the conversation, with a short message that restates the amount and the delivery time.
4. Check the payment in your history before preparing or delivering, not on a screenshot sent by the customer.
5. Deliver, then keep the record: every payment you collect stays in the app's history, with its date and amount.

For a customer you've known for years, you can deliver first and send the link afterward. For a first order, ask for payment before you head out: it's more comfortable for everyone, and it keeps you from turning a sale into credit without ever deciding to.

Down payments: cakes, holiday baskets, custom orders

A special order commits you: you buy the goods, you prepare them, and sometimes you turn down other sales to honor it. Asking for a down payment isn't rude; it's standard practice. The payment link is well suited to it: you send a first link for the down payment when the order is placed, then the customer pays the balance at pickup, by QR at the counter.

Always state in the description that it's a down payment, and for which order. On pickup day, you can see at a glance what has already been paid and what is still due.

Good habits to avoid misunderstandings

• One link per order: you always know what each payment is for.
• The exact amount, never a rough round figure: a gap, even a small one, often ends in an argument.
• A description the customer can understand: "Thursday's groceries, evening delivery" beats "order".
• The confirmation in your app, not a screenshot: an image can be edited, your history can't.
• Your PIN code stays secret: no one, neither a delivery person nor an employee, needs to know it.
• A clean history makes your cash flow easier to follow: see our guide to day-to-day cash flow for merchants.

When you also sell online: ChariPay

The chari.ma app is built for collecting payments from your phone. If your remote business grows (a website, orders every day, customers who want to pay in cash without having the app), the Chari ecosystem has another answer: ChariPay. ChariPay is a Moroccan payment platform, a PSP operated by Chari Money, a payment institution licensed by Bank Al-Maghrib.

At ChariPay, a payment link is an amount and a description; the customer pays on a page hosted by ChariPay. It is shared as a link, a QR code, a printable PDF poster, by email or WhatsApp. It is single-use or reusable, with an expiry of your choice, and a clear status: active, paid, canceled, expired. Everything is explained on the ChariPay payment links page.

For cash, the rule is precise: on the page of a single-use payment link with no expiry, your customer chooses cash, receives a reference, pays it at an agency of the Chari network, and you are notified as soon as the network confirms the deposit. The poster and the counter QR, for their part, collect by card: cash always goes through a single-use link, one reference per deposit. The full how-to is here: collecting cash payments by reference.

The chari.ma app or ChariPay: how to choose

• You mostly collect at the counter, with a few remote orders by message: the chari.ma app is enough, with its QR, its payment link and your RIB.
• You want to sell on a website, track your payment links from a portal or let customers without a card pay in cash at an agency: ChariPay is designed for that.
• You want a payment account opened in your company's name, with a RIB in that name: that's the ChariPay payment account.

Don't mix up the two accounts: the chari.ma account is the app's e-wallet; the ChariPay payment account is opened in your company's name, on the ChariPay platform. They are two separate products from the same ecosystem, and nothing forces you to choose one over the other. ChariPay is not a bank: your payment account is held by Chari Money. It complements your bank; it does not replace it.

Frequently asked questions

Next step

To get started, download the chari.ma app and collect your first remote payments from your phone. The terms reserved for merchants are on the Merchants page. And if a good share of your orders comes in by message, read our guide to selling on WhatsApp without a terminal.