Post purchase emails: what to send after an order

The short answer

Send an order confirmation straight after payment, a shipping confirmation with tracking when the parcel leaves, and a short notice if delivery runs late. Follow delivery with usage or care advice, then one review request once the customer has had time to use the product. Keep marketing out of the confirmation and link your returns policy in every message.

Post purchase emails in the order they are needed

Post purchase emails are the messages a store sends after a customer pays. Most are triggered by an event such as payment, dispatch or delivery, rather than sent to a list on a schedule. The table sets out a sensible set for a store that ships physical goods, with the job each one does.

A new store does not need all eight on day one. Start with the first four and the review request, and add the rest as real orders show where customers get confused.

What an order confirmation email should include

An order confirmation is both the receipt and the promise. It should arrive within moments of payment, and it should be complete enough that the customer never has to ask what they bought. If it is late or thin, the first message in your inbox will be a worried one.

• The order number, the order date and the name on the order.
• Every item, with its name, variant (size or colour), quantity and the price paid, ideally with a small picture.
• The delivery charge, any discount, the tax lines your country expects on a receipt, and the total.
• The delivery address and the delivery method chosen, with the estimate described as an estimate.
• The payment method in outline only, such as the card type. Never print a full card number.
• What happens next and when the customer will hear from you again.
• How to change or cancel the order, and the deadline for doing so, if you allow it.
• A contact route that reaches a person.

The totals must match what the shopper approved in the basket, down to the last line. A mismatch invites a dispute, so check the confirmation against the layout described in the guide to shopping cart page best practices.

Link to your shipping and returns pages from the email, not just from the website footer. The ecommerce policy pages checklist lists which policies a store needs. Some countries also require tax invoices to carry particular details, so ask an accountant what a receipt must show where you trade.

Keep the subject line plain: the order number and the word confirmed is enough. Clever subject lines belong to marketing emails.

What a shipping confirmation email needs

A shipping confirmation email is read for one reason: where is my parcel? Put the tracking link at the top, before any other content. Then give the carrier name, the items in this parcel, the delivery address and the estimated delivery window.

Three situations need extra care.

• Split shipments. Send one shipping confirmation per parcel, and say which items are still to come, so nobody thinks part of the order has been lost.
• Tracking that shows nothing. Tracking pages often stay empty until the carrier has scanned the parcel for the first time. Say so in the email, or customers will click, find nothing and write to you.
• International parcels. If the destination country may charge import duties or taxes, repeat what the customer was told at checkout about who pays them. A surprise charge at the door can end in a refused parcel.

If the carrier offers a pickup point or a way to reschedule delivery, link to it. Those options remove many of the questions that would otherwise reach your inbox.

Transactional and marketing messages are treated differently

Order confirmations and shipping updates relate to a purchase the customer made. Offers and newsletters are marketing. Many countries treat the two differently, mostly over consent, but where the line falls differs by country and changes over time. Read the regulator's official guidance for each country you sell to, and ask a lawyer before you decide how to handle edge cases.

These habits are safe under most approaches:

• Keep the confirmation about the order. A small related-item suggestion may be acceptable in one place and not in another, so ask before you add one.
• Do not add the buyer to your newsletter by default. Use a separate, unticked opt-in box at checkout, a point covered in the guide to ecommerce checkout optimisation.
• Honour unsubscribe requests for marketing email straight away.
• Treat the review request and the refill note as marketing unless a lawyer tells you otherwise for your market.

When to ask for a review

Ask once the customer has had a fair chance to use the product, not when you dispatch it. The right gap depends on what you sell. Something worn, eaten or assembled can be judged a few days after delivery. A mattress, a skincare routine or a tool that needs a learning curve needs weeks. Count from the delivered date rather than the order date, because a parcel in transit has no opinion yet.

Some rules of thumb:

• Send one request and at most one reminder. A third message reads as nagging.
• Ask every buyer, including the ones who seem unhappy. A review page with only praise looks edited.
• Skip customers with an open return or complaint. Solve the problem first.
• Do not pay or reward people for positive reviews. Rules on rewarding reviews differ by country and by review platform, so check them before offering any incentive.
• Make the first click easy, such as a star rating, and take the customer to the product page where reviews appear.

The delivery follow-up can act as the first step. A short note a few days after delivery with care or setup advice and an open invitation to reply gives unhappy customers a way to tell you directly, before they tell a stranger. The review request can follow later.

Delay, return and refund messages

Delay notices are the emails stores forget to build. Send one as soon as you know a parcel will miss the estimate. Give a new estimate, say what caused the delay if you know, and offer a cancellation route. A late parcel is easier to accept when the store said so first.

For returns, send an acknowledgement when the parcel arrives back and a second message when the refund is issued. State the amount, the method and the date you issued it. Do not promise the date the money lands, because banks and card issuers take their own time. If the refund is partial, list what was deducted and why.

These messages are also the place to repeat any exchange or store credit option, in a single sentence. The stronger fix for returns is on the product page, but the email can still save an order.

Make the emails look and read like part of your store

Use a sender name customers recognise and a reply-to address that a person reads. Keep layouts narrow, with one main link per email, a plain-text version and alternative text on images. Check how each message looks on a phone first, since that is where many customers will open it.

Ask whoever sends your email to confirm that your domain is authenticated with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Without it, order emails can land in spam, and a missing confirmation looks like a failed order.

How much you can change depends on the platform. Hosted platforms usually provide editable templates for the core messages, with limits on layout and logic. A custom build can send anything, but someone has to build and maintain it. The comparison of a custom ecommerce website and Shopify explains where that line tends to fall. If a store is being built for you, ask for the full list of automatic emails, who can edit them and how they were tested. The ecommerce solutions page describes the stores Liftup Technologies builds.

Test every email before launch

Place real test orders and read every email that results. A set that covers the usual mistakes looks like this:

1. One item, paid by card, delivered to a home address.
2. Several items with a discount code, to prove the totals add up.
3. A guest order and an order from a customer account.
4. An address in another country, to see what the email says about duties and taxes.
5. A split shipment, a partial refund and a failed payment.

Open each message in at least two mailboxes and on a phone. Click every link. Check that the numbers match the order screen in your admin.

Pages that emails link to, such as order status and account pages, are private. They should not appear in search results. The guide to ecommerce SEO for beginners explains which pages of a store belong in search and which do not.

Related guides

• Ecommerce solutions
• Custom ecommerce website vs shopify
• Ecommerce checkout optimisation
• Ecommerce seo for beginners where to start
• Shopping Cart Page Best Practices That Reduce Drop-Off
• Order confirmation emails what to include

Questions and answers

Which emails should follow an order?

At minimum, send an order confirmation, a shipping confirmation with tracking and a delay notice when needed. Add a delivery follow-up with care or setup advice, and one review request after the customer has used the product. Refund and return updates complete the set once you start taking returns.

What should an order confirmation include?

It should show the order number, every item with variant and quantity, the delivery charge, discounts, tax lines and total, the delivery address and method, and what happens next. Add how to change or cancel the order, a link to your returns policy and a contact route that reaches a person.

When should I ask for a review?

Ask after the customer has had time to use the product, counted from the delivery date. For quick-use items that may be a few days. For items that take time to judge, wait longer. Send one request and at most one reminder, and skip customers who have an open return or complaint.

Is an order confirmation a marketing email?

In most places an order confirmation counts as a message about a purchase, not marketing. Adding offers to it can change how it is treated. Rules differ by country and change, so check the regulator's guidance for your customers' countries and ask a lawyer about borderline content.

Should I send a separate shipping confirmation for each parcel?

Yes, when an order ships in more than one parcel. Each email should carry its own tracking link and list only the items in that parcel. Say which items are still to come so the customer does not assume something is missing.

Can I add product suggestions to an order confirmation?

Sometimes, but it depends on local rules and on how much the suggestion crowds out the order details. Keep the receipt information first and clear. Ask a lawyer whether a suggestion changes the legal status of the email in the countries where you sell.