Three myths about order confirmation emails

Most teams know this matters. Fewer have decided who owns it. A few things about order confirmation emails that get repeated more often than they get checked.

Small percentage changes matter here because they apply to every order, every month. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

“It only matters for big sites”

It is the most-opened email you will ever send. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. Anything you cannot measure here, you are deciding by taste, which is fine as long as everyone knows it.

“We can deal with it after launch”

Sometimes true, usually expensive. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one.

“Our platform handles it”

A tracking link reduces "where is my order" enquiries. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. Anything you cannot measure here, you are deciding by taste, which is fine as long as everyone knows it.

In practice

Trust does most of the selling online, and trust is built from unglamorous details. Three things worth confirming about order confirmation emails before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Include everything needed to avoid a support ticket — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.