Following an order, Shopify will send a series of emails to customers to keep them up to date on the progress of the order. Shopify can also email or text you or someone on your team to let you know about new orders in your store. In the notifications settings accessible through Settings and then Notifications in the navigation panel, you can control the content and layout of these emails.

Each of these emails has a template and when you edit the email template, you can change the content and layout of the email. Let's first take a look at the list of templates:

• Order confirmation: This email is sent to a customer to confirm that their order has been received. It lists: the shipping address, the billing address, the products ordered and the totals for the order.
• New order notification: This is the email sent to you or a member of your team to confirm a new order has been received. Be forewarned, checking for new orders confirmations can become very addictive!
• New order notification (mobile): If you choose to be notified of new orders by SMS (or text message) then it will use this template.

• Shipping confirmation: When you fulfill an order, you have the option to confirm to the customer that it has been shipped and provide them with the tracking details for the delivery. Providing these details helps the delivery to go smoothly: the customer can make sure that someone is there to receive the package for example. This reduces emails back and forth for customer service.
• Shipping update: If only part of the order was shipped initially, or if you update the details for the shipping, the customer will be sent this email. It confirms what products have been shipped this time and also provides the tracking details.
• Contact buyer: There is a link to contact the customer by email on the order summary in the orders section. In general, this would be used to confirm something about their order or if there is some sort of problem with their order.
• Order cancelled: When for some reason you cancel an order, this email will be sent to the customer to let them know. It explains the reason for the cancellation and lets them know what is happening with their payment.

If you chose to activate customer accounts in the checkout settings then there will also be email templates for the following:

• Customer account welcome: After a new customer confirms an order, they are given the option to set up an account that they can use next time to make their orders. This email is sent to them when they choose to open an account.
• Customer account activation: When you create a new customer account, you have the option to send the customer an account invite. This email is sent to them and invites them to finish the creation of their account by setting a password.
• Customer password reset: If for some reason the customer forgets their password and is unable to sign-in to their account, they can click a link "Forgot your password" on the sign in page. This email will be sent to them with a link to click to reset their password.

In online commerce, there are very few actual contact points with the customer - points where you can impress upon the customer your brand and values: points where you can positively impact on your relationship. They see your store, perhaps they contact you by phone or email, you send them various emails relating to their order and then they see the attention you pay to the packaging and delivery of your order.

Customizing these email templates offers a great chance to make more of an impact. At the least, it'd be good to include a more elaborate footer with your store's contact details. But you could also use it as an opportunity to introduce new products, competitions, promotions, etc. The order confirmation email is an email that is generally read to confirm the order is correct: that spells opportunity.

Editing An Email Template

Let's take a look at how to edit these email templates. We'll start with the simplest template, "Contact Buyer", the email used to contact the customer:

• In the "Email & Notifications" section, click on the link for the template of your choice. I'm going to click on "Contact Buyer".

• The template will then open up. If you are not used to this sort of thing, don't let it intimidate you, it's not as complicated as it looks. The template consists of two fields: the email subject and the text of the email.

• Click on the link Preview plain text email under the text of the email. This will show a preview of an email generated with this template using an example customer. Again you can see the two fields: the email subject and then the text of the email. You'll be writing the text of your message between the dear customer and the name of your store.
• The template uses simple variables like {{ shop_name }}. When an email is being prepared, this variable is replaced with, you guessed it, your shop name. Compare the screenshot above with the screenshot on the last page. The other variables might look a bit more complicated but they're not really. You might have guessed {{ name }} is replaced with an order number. In the preview, it was replaced with "#9999". In the text of the email {{ billing_address.name }} was replaced with the name of the customer relating to order #9999, in this case "Bob Biller".
• If you want to keep it simple, you can just put whatever normal text you want in the email. Just avoid using the curly brackets { and }. So for example, you could put your store's address, telephone, email address and website address underneath the store name.

• If on the other hand, you want to add other variables, just look up what you need in the list of variables. Click on the link email variables just above the text of the email. Make sure you get the format correct with two curly brackets on each side of the variable name.
  

• Double check that everything is as expected using the preview plain text email link. You can also see what it looks like in your email client by clicking on the link Send test email. Click the Save button to finish.
  

The other templates are more complicated mainly because they include conditions and a lot more variables. But it's generally straightforward to insert some text and even just that can significantly improve the emails.

If you "break" an email template

If you run into a problem with an email template and it no longer works as it should be then you may need to replace it with the original. You can get the originals in the Shopify Manual here.

Enabling HTML Templates

For all of the email templates, other than "Contact Buyer", there is the option to enable a HTML template. This provides you with more control of how the email is formatted but you need to know HTML.

To enable HTML templates:

• In the notifications section, click on the name for the template of your choice to view the template.

• You'll notice a checkbox Enable HTML email near the bottom-left of the box containing the template. It's just below the preview plain text email link. Select the checkbox.