September 29, 2021

Order Confirmation Emails: Examples and Best Practices for Ecommerce

Reading time about 10 min

Order confirmation emails are an essential part of any ecommerce email marketing strategy and online shopping experience. Skipping them or doing them sloppily can cost you sales and customers. 

Let’s explore what information an order confirmation email should provide and what the best practices are. 

What is an order confirmation email?

Order confirmation emails are transactional emails sent as soon as an order is placed. They deliver the digital receipt to the customer to verify that the order went through. This means they’re strictly individual, sent in response to each customer’s order. 

Confirming an order is a basic customer service step every ecommerce business should take if it wants to be seen as serious and legitimate. If they don’t get a confirmation email, people would wonder if everything went right. And most likely, they’d keep your phone lines busy all the time. 

Luckily, it can easily be automated with a transactional email service like Brevo so you don’t have to worry about it.

order confirmation email

What information order confirmation emails contain

The primary purpose of confirmation emails is to make sure the order is just as the customer wanted it to be. That’s why they usually contain order details such as:

  • the products ordered;
  • the sum paid (or to be paid on delivery);
  • the order number;
  • package tracking information;
  • expected delivery date;
  • customer service contacts.

Some optional elements are the shipping method, shipping address, and the payment method just to confirm one more time that they’re correct. A link to an FAQ page or customer support contact is welcome, too.

Why are confirmation emails important?

First, because the order summary shows your system’s working fine and puts the customer at ease. That’s especially important when the payment has already been made. People wouldn’t care if they didn’t get a promotional email, but care very much to see that their transaction went through correctly. 

Second, order confirmation emails can provide shipping information. That improves the customer experience because the customer knows what to expect and when. Being in the dark is frustrating so they’d appreciate your proactivity on this one. The smoother and easier the online shopping experience, the more likely people are to repeat it.

And third, those are the ecommerce emails with the highest open rate of around 64%! No promotional email or newsletter will ever get as many eyes. So they’re an excellent real estate to feature related products and try to upsell those customers. 

In short, order confirmation emails boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Order confirmation best practices

Now that we covered the basics of receipt emails, let’s see what are the best practices and tactics to get even more results out of them. 

Say thank you

The simplest things sometimes get overlooked. Saying thanks is so logical — you’d do it if you were dealing with the customer in person at a brick-and-mortar store! After all, placing an order is the best thing they can do for you.

Time it right

Send the confirmation email immediately once the order’s completed. This way the customer will know everything worked right away. Keeping them on edge would only make the shopping experience worse.

Aim for loyalty

Confirmation emails are an essential part of a good customer experience. When they see that you do things right, provide all the information on time, and their money is safe, they’ll be more likely to shop from you again.

Work on customer satisfaction

Making the customer happy with a purchase is a long game. The buying process is one thing, but actually using and enjoying the product is even more important. 

It’s a smart idea to use the order confirmation email to get people excited about the product they’re about to receive. Send along usage tips and inspirational ideas. This will help them use the products more and better, which in turn will lead to an increase in satisfaction and repeat orders. 

Highlight a good deal

Including the order total is, of course, a good practice. But it’d be even better if you break it down to show the savings they made with the purchase. This will fight buyer’s remorse, that feeling of regret when we spend money on something we don’t need.

Brand every email

Email design is as important for transactional emails as it is for promotional ones. Order confirmation emails will definitely get opened so don’t miss the chance to reinforce brand awareness. 

Try cross-selling

Strike the iron while it’s hot, as the saying goes. If the customer’s in the mood for spending, why not try to push something extra? Feature related product recommendations to make them think, “Oh, I need that too.” You can even ship both orders together.

Another loyalty-stimulating tactic is giving a discount code for the next order. Put an expiration date on it and you’ll speed up your repeat orders. 

Promote your community

You’d want to keep customers engaged with your brand even between orders. For this purpose, you can ask them in the order confirmation email to sign up for your mailing list (if they haven’t already). Also, include links to your forum section, social media, or events and encourage them to join the conversation.

Follow up with a shipping confirmation email

You can add one more touch point to peak the customer’s excitement for delivery. Send them an order status update just to show that everything’s on track.

Ideas for Order Confirmation Email Subject Lines

This particular subject line has to be on point because people will be looking for it in their inbox. Leave puns and clickbait for promotional emails. Order confirmations are serious business. 

Some classic subject lines include:

Thanks for your order

Your [brand] receipt

Order confirmed

We received your order

You can also go for something more creative if it fits your brand voice:

We’re happy we can help you with [the problem your products solve]

We’re excited to have you try [brand] and tell us what you think! (best for first-time orders)

Your new [product] arrives in X days.

Top tactics when you’re wondering how to write email subject lines:

  • Include the word “receipt”
  • Personalize with customer’s name to boost open rates
  • Use emojis in email
  • Tease with “Forget something?” and a CTA button to keep shopping

Pro tip: Insert your ecommerce store’s name in the subject line to make it stand out. Especially during Black Friday when people shop a lot and get way too many purchase confirmation emails. This little trick will help them find you among the rest. See more Black Friday email subject line ideas

Order confirmation email examples

Here are some of the best order confirmation emails to copy.

#Good subject line

It’s impossible to miss this one with the subject line Your Feet Say Thank You.

order confirmation example by allbirds

source: Really Good Emails

#Extra call-to-action

This order confirmation pushes signing up for SMS updates.

Find out more about SMS Marketing here.

source: Really Good Emails

#Good deal

Notice how one extra line highlighting the savings makes the purchase feel good?

source: Really Good Emails

#Referral program

This confirmation serves a triple purpose. It asks customers to refer a friend, i.e. new customer acquisition on top of loyalty and customer service.

order confirmation example by food52

source: Really Good Emails

#Brand colors

This order confirmation email is designed in the brand colors to reinforce the brand identity.

Pro tip: Add gifs in the email body to make it more playful and exciting.

order confirmation example by burst

source: Really Good Emails

#The playful opening

The top of the email gets the customer excited about their order.

order confirmation example by casper

source: Really Good Emails

How to send order confirmation emails with Brevo?

If you choose Brevo as your transactional email platform, you’ll be able to send all your order confirmation emails, delivery updates, account registrations, subscription double opt-ins, and so on effectively and securely.

  1. Connect your ecommerce store. Brevo offers various ways to do that: API, SMTP, plugins. Thus, order confirmations will be sent automatically.
  2. Use the order confirmation email templates available or design your own with the drag-and-drop editor. 
  3. Customize with order details such as product name, price, quantity, URL, image, category, variant, order value, discount applied, tax, currency, and many more. 
  4. Your emails will be made mobile-friendly by default.
  5. Hit the customer’s inbox by following email deliverability best practices.
  6. A shared inbox by Brevo can come in handy if the customer replies to the order confirmation email with an issue and your team needs to follow-up.

Try Brevo’s Transactional Email plan

Free SMTP server for up to 300 emails/day, email API for developers, transactional email templates, and top deliverability.

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