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BigCommerce Transactional Emails: 5 Best Practices + Examples

bigcommerce-transactional-emails:-5-best-practices-+-examples

Reading Time: 6 minutes

If you’re looking to boost sales for your BigCommerce store, engaging your customers with on-brand transactional emails is a great place to start.

Transactional emails are the bread and butter of basic ecommerce marketing. In fact, they can increase your revenue by as much as 600%. That being said, your BigCommerce transactional emails will perform much better only if done properly.

So how do you create a killer transactional email and make sure it brings more sales to your BigCommerce store?

From must-have transactional email types to catchy design examples, we’ll show you how to get the most out of your BigCommerce transactional emails.

Using default BigCommerce transactional emails? There’s a better way

There are countless benefits to sending transactional emails. Unfortunately, the default BigCommerce email customization options aren’t the best.

BigCommerce limits you to sending transactional emails in plain text, which won’t help you take advantage of sending a series of beautifully branded emails to your customers.

Thankfully, there’s a solution: using one of the best BigCommerce apps available.

Omnisend + BigCommerce: the perfect match

Omnisend is one of only two email marketing platforms chosen by BigCommerce as an Elite Technology Partner.

Even better, Omnisend’s BigCommerce app provides all the tools you need to create effective, high-converting, and on-brand transactional emails.

By integrating your BigCommerce store with Omnisend, you can create and send engaging transactional emails in minutes using our pre-built templates, with great options for every step of the customer journey.

From first-time shoppers to long-term customers, we’ve got you covered. Best part? Omnisend’s simple, easy-to-use interface with a drag-and-drop builder makes creating transactional emails a breeze.

Start freetoday and drive your sales on autopilot!

How to customize transactional emails for your BigCommerce store

Before you start sending high-converting transactional emails, you’ll have to integrate your BigCommerce store with Omnisend. Here’s how.

1. Connect your Omnisend account to your BigCommerce store

Here’s a quick step-by-step:

1. From your BigCommerce admin go to Apps, visit the BigCommerce marketplace and locate Omnisend.

2. Then, click on the Get this app button and log in to your BigCommerce store.

3. Choose to Install Omnisend, provide all necessary permissions, and finally, set up your Omnisend account.

That’s it! Your BigCommerce store is now connected to Omisend.

2. Connect your BigCommerce store via Omnisend settings

First of all, you need to have an active BigCommerce store. To see if it’s active, go to Channel Manager -> Storefronts and then Make active.

process of connecting BigCommerce store with Omnisend

After you activate your storefront, go to your Omnisend account, and click on the Connect your online store with Omnisend option on the Let’s get started page.

You can also do this by going to Store Settings -> Connect your store, picking BigCommerce from the list, and clicking on the Connect Store button.

process of connecting BigCommerce store with Omnisend platform

On the next page, you’ll be asked to enter your store URL.

To find this URL, log in to your BigCommerce Account Dashboardand click on the store name within My Account page.

Then, scroll down to Details to their Current Domain, Permanent Address, and Control Panel address URLs.

BigCommerce Account Dashboard

3. Create transactional email workflows on Omnisend

Now that you’ve set up Omnisend, you can easily create high-performing transactional email workflows.

Here’s how:

  1. From your Omnisend admin, go to Automation.
  2. Click  +New Workflow, then check Transactional, select the workflow you want to customize, and use Omnisend to make it your own.
transactional email workflows on Omnisend

For detailed walkthroughs about creating each type of transactional email workflow, see their full how-to guides on our knowledge base.

5 must-have types of BigCommerce transactional emails

Order confirmation: These are brief messages informing your shoppers that they’ve placed an order. These emails are essential for keeping your customers in the loop: after all, that’s the least they expect after they make a purchase.

Shipping confirmation: Automated shipping confirmation emails are sent once your customer’s order has been shipped or delayed. This is another must-have transactional email type, as your customers are likely to get worried about their order if they don’t get tracking updates.

Cancellation confirmation: When a customer changes their mind about a recent purchase and cancels an order, an automated cancellation notification will confirm that the order had indeed been canceled.

Customer feedback request: Once your customers have a chance to try out their new items, it’s always a good idea to get in touch after a set period of time and ask about their experience with a feedback request.

Password reset: If a customer loses their password, an automatic password reset email makes it easy for them to regain access to their account.

Five transactional email examples for your BigCommerce store

Now that we’ve covered the must-have types of transactional emails, let’s take a look at five real-life examples.

1. Order confirmation

When it comes to order confirmation emails, you should aim to communicate as efficiently as possible.

In this example, Zalando gives their customers all the order information they might need. This includes the delivery address, estimated delivery window, order number and date, products purchased, their price, as well as information about Zalando’s cancellation policy.

example of order confirmation email

Even though the email may seem long, all the important information is laid out above the fold or close to the top. If the customer wants additional details, they can learn more by scrolling down. However, they can see the most relevant info as soon as they open the email.

2. Shipping confirmation

Shipping confirmations only lead to a 1.5% conversion rate, they’re still an important element of the online shopping experience.

If buyers haven’t received consistent notifications about their order status, they’re more likely to take time away from your customer service team. It’s also important to quickly respond to shipping delays and adjust your customers’ expectations accordingly.

example of shipping confirmation email

This shipping notification from Away perfectly balances between providing the necessary details, explaining the reason for the delay, and showing customers that the Away team cares about their delayed order, alleviating their anxiety.

3. Cancellation confirmation

Sometimes, your customers may make mistakes when placing an order. It’s possible that they’ll cancel the order only to replace it with another one.

However, it may also be that they cancel their order because they changed their mind about the product, or even because they’d rather go with a competitor’s product. In any case, cancellation notification emails go out to the customer to confirm that their order has been canceled.

order confirmation email

However, even though it may not be the best outcome from your perspective, you can still use this opportunity to recommend your other products that could pique the customer’s interest:

email with recommended products

4. Customer feedback request

People tend to trust reviews from real customers more than promotional content.

Incentivizing feedback will help you capitalize on satisfied customers and let other shoppers voice any concerns they might have about their previous orders.

In the following example, Hollister cuts straight to the chase without distracting their customers with too much text.

email with customer feedback request

In addition, the brand also rewards customer feedback with a chance to win a $100 gift card. That gift card will be more desirable to customers who want more Hollister products, which makes this feedback request more likely to incentivize positive reviews.

5. Password reset

These days, the average user probably has dozens of different online accounts, so some of your subscribers are likely to forget their password. As a result, you want to make your account recovery process as easy and painless as possible to avoid losing customers.

For security reasons, make sure to avoid including passwords or other sensitive data in the password reset message itself. Instead, the email should include a link to the password reset page on your website.

example of password reset email

This password reset email from SendGrid is clear and direct. The blue “Reset Password” button is easily noticeable and visually guides the reader to the intended action. Note that the message also contains links to the SendGrid blog as well as their social media pages.

BigCommerce transactional emails: Wrap up

Great transactional emails are much more than a mere formality.

They’re a fundamental part of the online shopping experience, helping you keep your customers in the loop and move them further along your marketing funnel, and request customer feedback.

Setting up automated transactional emails will give you more satisfied customers and more sales in the long term. And by using Omnisend to customize and personalize your BigCommerce transactional emails, you’re able to harness the power of automation and build a more effective email marketing strategy.

Get started with Omnisend today & drive sales on autopilot with pre-built automation workflows

Start Free Today

Special thanks to our friends at Omnisend for their insights on this topic.
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