We email your customers for you as their order moves: when they order, when it ships and arrives, if it is cancelled or refunded, and as a return goes along. This article lists every one of those emails, the ones that come to you, and how to check on the order what was sent.
Who receives them, and where they come from
You do not write or send these emails; they go by themselves. You cannot change their wording or turn them off, apart from the shipment tick described below.
- They go to the email on the order, the one the customer typed at checkout. If the order has none, they go to the email on the customer’s account. If there is neither, no email is sent. To make sure every customer can be reached, turn on Require email at checkout under Settings › Commerce; see set tax, payment methods and guest checkout.
- They come from your store. Your store’s name is the sender, and your logo, address and theme colour dress the email. When a customer replies, the reply goes to the Contact email under Settings › Store, or to our support team if you have not set one; see update your store details.
- Each one links back to the order. Order emails carry a View your order button that opens the order on your storefront, and return updates a View your return button that opens the same page, where the order’s returns are listed. Both work for guests too, without signing in.
If you correct the customer’s email on the order, every later email goes to the new address. See edit an order’s address, notes or tags.
Order confirmation
Sent as soon as the order is placed, whether the customer pays by card or on delivery. It thanks them, lists the items, the totals and the delivery address, and has the invoice attached as a PDF.
The customer gets it once. When you later confirm the order, no second confirmation goes out.
For a card order it goes before the payment completes. So a customer whose card payment then fails, or who never finishes paying, still has the confirmation, while the order shows Awaiting payment or Needs attention. If they ask, tell them the order was not paid.
Shipped and delivered, and the Notify customer tick
Shipped goes when the parcel leaves:
- when you create a shipment with Mark order shipped ticked, which it is unless you untick it (see Mark order shipped: ticked or not); or
- when you move a shipment to Picked up with Notify customer when supported ticked.
It shows the tracking number and the delivery provider’s name if the shipment has them. If the shipment has a tracking link, the button is Track your shipment; otherwise it is View your order.
Delivered goes when you mark the shipment Delivered with Notify customer when supported ticked, or when the order itself is marked delivered. It repeats the items and totals.
Notify customer when supported sits in the form where you update a shipment, and is ticked by default. Untick it to move the shipment without emailing the customer, for example when you are catching up on old orders. Only Picked up and Delivered send an email; In transit, Out for delivery, Delivery failed and the other shipment statuses never do. See update a shipment.
Each shipment sends the shipped email once: when you create it with Mark order shipped ticked, or when you mark it Picked up later. An order sent again in a new shipment, after a failed delivery, sends a new shipped email with the new tracking number. The delivered email goes once per order.
Cancelled and refunded
Cancelled goes when you cancel the order, on its own or with Cancel selected from the orders list. It includes the cancellation reason you typed, so write it for the customer. When you cancel with Cancel selected an order whose card payment was already taken, it also says the refund follows the payment provider’s rules; when you cancel an order on its own page with Cancel order, the email leaves that line out. See what the customer receives. Cancelling does not refund the card: refund the order as well. Cancelling already put the stock back, and the refund does not add it again; see whether stock comes back.
Refunded goes each time you refund a card payment. It says whether the order was refunded in full or in part, shows the order number, the amount and your refund reason, and tells the customer refunds usually appear within 5–10 business days, depending on their bank. A second partial refund sends a second email with its own amount.
We do not email the customer about a cash refund you record on a cash on delivery order; they already have the money in hand. Nor do we email them when an order paid entirely by gift card and points gets its card balance and points back, since no money moves. Tell them yourself. See How do I refund a cash on delivery order?
The note you type when you change an order’s status stays with your team. Only a cancellation reason and a refund reason reach the customer.
Return updates
As a return moves, the customer hears from us at each decision. Each email quotes the return’s reference and the order number.
| The return becomes | What the customer is told |
|---|---|
| Awaiting shipment (approved) | The return is approved; send the items back using the store’s instructions. |
| In transit | The return is on its way back to the store. |
| Received | The store has the return and is checking the items. |
| Rejected | The return was not approved; reply to this email to know more. |
| Completed | The return is closed; nothing more is needed. |
Creating a return sends nothing, and neither does a customer’s own request from your storefront: their order page confirms it with the return’s reference. When you select Refund return, the customer gets the refund email above instead of a return update, or nothing for a cash refund or a gift card and points give-back. See handle a return.
Other emails your customers get: back in stock and the cart reminder
- Back in stock. When a product is sold out, customers can select Notify me on its page and leave their email. When you add stock on the product’s page, each of them gets one email with a link to the product, and that is the only email they get. Stock raised by a CSV import sends no email; see how an import matches rows. When a cancelled or returned order puts units back instead, only as many people as there are units are told, those who asked first; the rest keep waiting. This works on every plan; see track and adjust stock.
- The cart reminder. On Starter and up, a customer who leaves items in their cart gets one reminder, at least 4 hours after they stop and within 2 days. It needs an email we can reach: their account’s, or the one they had typed at checkout. See abandoned cart recovery.
Written in your store’s language
Every email to your customers is written in your store’s Default language, under Settings › Localization — English or Arabic, or French on Growth and up (see plans and what each includes) — whatever language the customer browsed your storefront in. The store name in the email, the attached invoice and the email’s layout follow it too, so an Arabic email reads right to left. See store languages, currency and time zone.
The emails that come to you
We also email you, at the Contact email under Settings › Store. These come from NoqtaShop rather than from your store, in your store’s default language.
| When | |
|---|---|
| New order | Every order placed. It shows the order number, the total, how many items, the delivery city and the payment method, with a link to the order in the console. |
| Return requested | When a customer asks for a return from their order page on your storefront. Returns you create yourself do not send it: see where return requests appear. |
| New review | When a customer leaves a product review for you to approve. See approve reviews. |
| Low stock alert | Once a day when products reach your low-stock threshold, on Growth and up. See fulfilment time, stock alerts and the order webhook. |
With no contact email set, none of these reach you, but new orders, return requests and reviews still appear in the bell at the top of the console. See keep up with notifications.
Seeing what was sent on the timeline, and emails that failed
- Open the order. It opens on the Overview tab.
- Scroll to Activity timeline. It lists everything that happened to the order, newest first.
Each email we sent the customer about this order is a line of its own:
- Customer email sent — with the address and the subject, such as Order #ORD-20261009-C21A20 shipped.
- Customer email failed — with the address, the subject and the reason it failed.
Emails leave within about a minute of the change. A line that says failed right after you act can be an email still waiting to go; reload the order after a minute before you act on it.
When an email really failed:
- A wrong or unknown address fails at once and is not tried again. If the order has not shipped, correct Customer email in Edit customer and address; the next email goes to the new address, but the failed one is not resent, so contact the customer another way.
- A temporary problem on the receiving side is retried for about half an hour before the email is given up.
The timeline shows emails sent to the order’s current email address. If you change the address, emails sent to the old one no longer appear.
What to do next
- How order stages work shows which step of the order sends which email.
- Update a shipment covers the Notify customer when supported tick in context.