About this plugin
SociaHive automates conversations with your customers in direct messages and comments. This plugin connects your WooCommerce store to your SociaHive account so that:
- SociaHive can send product cards with your real prices, images and stock.
- A buy link in a message opens your checkout with the product already in the cart.
- Orders placed through those links show up in SociaHive, so you can see which conversations led to sales, and customers can get order updates in the conversation.
Works with classic and block checkout, and with both order storage modes (HPOS and legacy). A SociaHive account is required; the plugin itself is free.
The settings SociaHive acts on (where buy links open, cart recovery and order messages) are managed on your store’s page in SociaHive. The plugin’s screen in WordPress shows the connection, the sync status and a link there.
External services
com. It is needed to show your products and send buy links in SociaHive’s conversations.
Nothing is sent before an administrator clicks “Connect to SociaHive” on the WooCommerce → SociaHive screen. After connecting, the plugin sends:
- Products, when they change, once at connection, and when SociaHive asks for a catalog check: name, description, prices, SKU, stock, categories, images, attributes, variations and the product link. A catalog check sends only product ids and modification dates.
- Orders placed through a SociaHive buy link only (orders carrying the _sh_click meta), when they change: order id and number, status, currency, totals, payment and shipping method names, dates, line items, whether the order has anything to ship, and the buyer’s billing first name (used to greet them by name). No last name, address, phone number, email, IP address, user agent or order note is sent. Other orders are never sent.
- Every 15 minutes, a check-in: plugin, WordPress, WooCommerce and PHP versions, the store currency, the checkout and cart page addresses, how many changes are waiting to be sent, and when background tasks last ran.
- When the plugin is deactivated, disconnected or deleted: a notice that it was.
Every request includes the site’s address and is signed with a secret shared only by this store and SociaHive. During connection, SociaHive loads your home page with a one-time sh_verify parameter to confirm the plugin is really installed on your site.
- Terms of service: https://www.sociahive.com/terms
- Privacy policy: https://www.sociahive.com/privacy
Cookies and privacy
When a shopper opens a SociaHive buy link, the plugin stores a random link identifier in the WooCommerce session. It also sets a first-party cookie, sh_c, for 7 days, so an order placed on a later visit is still credited to the conversation:
- With the WP Consent API plugin and a compatible consent banner, the cookie is set only when the shopper allowed marketing cookies.
- Without the Consent API, the cookie is set. If your store needs prior consent, install the Consent API and a banner that supports it.
The plugin suggests text for your privacy policy (Settings → Privacy → Policy Guide) and adds an eraser to Tools → Erase Personal Data that removes the link identifier from a person’s orders.
Where the secret is stored
WordPress has no secret store. The store secret is kept, encrypted with a key derived from your site’s LOGGED_IN_KEY and LOGGED_IN_SALT, in the sociahive_connection option, which is not autoloaded. It is replaced every time you connect again (the previous one keeps working for ten minutes).
Disconnecting or uninstalling deletes it. If those keys change (some security plugins rotate them), the plugin asks you to connect again.