Signs it is time to revisit order confirmation emails

This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. A few signals that order confirmation emails is due some attention.

In e-commerce every friction point has a price attached, and the arithmetic is unusually easy to check. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• It is the most-opened email you will ever send
• Include everything needed to avoid a support ticket

How to approach it

A tracking link reduces "where is my order" enquiries. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

How to tell if yours is fine

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
• It is the most-opened email you will ever send — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Worth checking on your own setup before it becomes someone else's problem to fix.