E-commerce

The order confirmation is the most-opened email you will ever send. Most stores waste it.

Order confirmations are opened at rates no marketing campaign reaches, because the recipient is actively waiting for one. Four emails over about six weeks turn that attention into a second order instead of a receipt nobody thinks about again.

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In short

A post-purchase series is four emails over roughly six weeks: the order confirmation immediately, a getting-started email when the parcel arrives, a review request around day ten, and a replenishment or complementary-product email at day forty-five. Order confirmations see industry benchmark open rates near 60%, several times a marketing campaign, because the customer is waiting for one. The mistake that costs the most is loading that first email with promotions until it stops being a transactional message — legally as well as practically. Full copy for all four emails is below.

~60%Industry benchmark open rate for order confirmations — several times a campaign

4 emailsOver about six weeks. The gaps matter as much as the emails

Day 10Review request. Earlier and they have not used it; later and they have moved on

1 askPer email. A confirmation that also upsells, surveys and cross-sells achieves none of them

The sequence

1Email 1 — immediately

SubjectOrder {{order_number}} confirmedHere's what you bought and when it should arrive.

Hi {{first_name}},

Thanks — your order is confirmed and we're packing it now.

Order {{order_number}} · {{order_items}} · {{order_total}}

Shipping to {{shipping_address}}. Estimated arrival {{delivery_estimate}}. We'll email you a tracking link the moment it leaves us.

If anything above is wrong, reply to this email in the next few hours and we can still change it.

View your order

Why it is shaped this way: Every fact the customer might want is in the body, not behind the button — order number, items, total, address, arrival window. People open this on a phone to check one detail, and a page load between them and that detail is the difference between a reassured customer and a support ticket. Inviting a reply is deliberate: it catches wrong-address orders while they are still fixable, and replies are a positive engagement signal with mailbox providers.

2Email 2 — day of delivery, or the day after

SubjectIt's arrived. Here's the bit most people missTwo minutes now saves the return later.

Hi {{first_name}},

Your {{product_name}} should be with you.

One thing worth knowing before you start: {{key_setup_tip}}. It's the single most common reason people get less out of it than they should, and it takes about two minutes to get right.

If it's not quite what you expected, tell us rather than living with it — {{returns_summary}}, and we'd rather sort it now than have you not use the thing.

Read the quick-start guide

Why it is shaped this way: This is the email that reduces returns, and almost nobody sends it. A customer who cannot get a product working does not usually complain — they quietly stop using it and never buy again. Trigger on the delivery event rather than a fixed delay: sent while the parcel is still in transit it reads as noise, so pull the status from your carrier or store integration rather than guessing at a day count.

3Email 3 — day 10

SubjectWould you tell us what you think, {{first_name}}?Two minutes, and it genuinely helps the next person deciding.

Hi {{first_name}},

You've had the {{product_name}} for a week or so now — long enough to have an actual opinion about it.

Would you leave a short review? It takes a couple of minutes, and it's the thing the next person deciding whether to buy will read first.

If something hasn't gone well, reply here instead. We'd rather fix it than read about it later.

Leave a review

Why it is shaped this way: Ten days is the window where the customer has actually used the thing and still remembers ordering it. Offering the unhappy path — reply to us instead — is not a way of suppressing bad reviews; it is how you find the fixable problem before it becomes a public one. Never make an incentive conditional on a positive review: in most markets that is a straightforward consumer-law problem, and the review platforms remove anything obtained that way.

4Email 4 — day 45

SubjectRunning low on {{product_name}}?Roughly the point most people reorder.

Hi {{first_name}},

You ordered {{product_name}} about six weeks ago. If you're using it the way most people do, you're getting near the end of it.

Reordering takes one click — same size, same address.

Reorder in one click

Why it is shaped this way: Set the delay to your product's actual consumption cycle rather than copying forty-five days from a template — a coffee subscription and a pair of boots are not the same email. For products that are not consumable, replace the reorder with the genuinely complementary item, and drop the email entirely if there isn't one. An irrelevant cross-sell to a happy customer costs more goodwill than the sale is worth.

What goes wrong with this sequence

Turning the order confirmation into a campaignA confirmation stuffed with banners, upsells and a newsletter signup stops being a transactional message. That has a practical cost — the customer cannot find their order number — and a legal one: the transactional exemption under CAN-SPAM turns on the primary purpose of the message, and in the EU and UK the lawful basis for processing a purchase does not stretch to promotional content nobody agreed to. One modest, relevant recommendation at the bottom is fine. A second campaign is not.

Sending the delivery email on a timerGuessing that delivery happens on day three means a share of customers get 'it's arrived!' while tracking still says in transit. Trigger from the carrier's delivered status through your store integration. If you cannot get that event, send later than you think rather than earlier — a day behind reads as thoughtful, three days early reads as automated.

Asking for a review before they have used itA review request at day two gets you reviews about the packaging. Wait until there is something to review. The exception is a product with an immediate verdict — a meal, a ticket, a download — where day two is right and day ten is too late to recall.

Running the whole sequence for every orderThe fourth order in three months does not need the getting-started email again. Suppress customers who have been through the sequence within the window, and branch first-time buyers away from repeat ones. Repeat customers should get a shorter version, or the reorder email alone.

Letting it run when something has gone wrongA review request arriving in the middle of an open support ticket, or after a refund, is the fastest way to turn a fixable problem into a one-star review. Add exit conditions for refunds, returns and open tickets, and evaluate them before every send rather than only at entry.

Questions

Is the order confirmation a transactional or a marketing email?

Transactional, as long as its primary purpose stays the order. That is what lets it reach customers who never opted into marketing. Add enough promotional content and the primary purpose changes, at which point it needs consent like any campaign — and in the EU and UK that is the actual risk rather than a theoretical one. Keep the order details dominant and any recommendation small and clearly secondary.

Should these go through a transactional API or a marketing flow?

Split them. The confirmation should send transactionally so it is not queued behind a campaign and cannot be caught by a marketing suppression rule — someone who unsubscribed from marketing must still get their receipt. Emails two to four are marketing and belong in the automation, subject to consent and a working unsubscribe.

What if I sell one-off products with no reorder?

Drop email four, or replace it with the genuine complement — the case for the camera, the refill for the tool. If neither exists, three emails is a complete sequence. Padding it out with a generic 'here's 10% off anything' teaches customers to wait for a discount, which is expensive to unteach.

How does this interact with the abandoned cart flow?

A purchase must remove the customer from the cart sequence immediately, or they receive 'you left something behind' after they bought it. Make the purchase event an exit condition on the cart flow and the entry condition on this one, then test it with a real order before switching it on.

Can I ask for a review and a referral in the same email?

You can, and it will reduce both. Two asks split the attention and the click. If you want the referral, send it after a positive review rather than alongside the request — you then know who is worth asking.

Keep exploring

Abandoned cart seriesThe flow this one must exit people from the moment they buy.Transactional APIWhere the confirmation should send from, separate from campaigns.Shopify integrationOrder and delivery events, so the timing is real rather than guessed.WooCommerce integrationComing soon — send WooCommerce order events in by webhook meanwhile.Email marketing for e-commerceHow the flows fit together across the customer lifecycle.All templatesWelcome, cart recovery, launch sequences and more.

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