This guide covers the automatic emails your customers receive when they shop, donate, or create accounts on your site. The default design and content of these emails are ready to use as-is, but you can customize them to match your design and brand.
These notifications are only for your Commerce customers. If you also have Scheduling clients, manage their email notifications in the Scheduling panel.
Tip: You can create automated campaigns to send marketing emails to customers after they make a purchase.
Note: We're releasing a new version of the Customer Notifications editor in waves. If your site doesn't have the options described here, visit Customer email notifications.
Switch to the new editor by January 7, 2021
We updated customer notifications with new email templates and a new editor to offer more design options, and the ability to customize all transactional emails your site sends to customers. The new editor doesn’t rely on JSON variables or custom HTML. Instead, you can use merge tags and set global styles to match your emails to the rest of your site. This guide covers the JSON editor.
Your site will automatically switch to the new editor on January 7, 2021, or you can switch early. You'll have until then to recreate any email customizations you made using the JSON editor. To learn how to switch to the new editor, visit Customer Email Notifications.
Preview customer-facing emails
To see what your store's automatic, customer-facing emails look like:
- In the Home Menu, click Commerce, then click Customer Notifications.
- Click an email category, and then click an email type.
From here, you can customize the email's content and see what the email looks like to customers.
Orders and donations
Customers receive these emails after they make a purchase or donation:
- Order Confirmed - Sent after a purchase. It acts as a receipt and includes an order summary and shipping details.
- Order Fulfilled - Sent when an order is marked as fulfilled. This email can include a tracking number.
- Order Refunded
- Donation Confirmed
Order emails include the billing and shipping information customers enter at checkout.
Order Confirmed emails for digital and service products don't include shipping details. Instead, the default message includes information about next steps:
- Digital products - "Thank you for your order at [Site Title]. Unique links to your digital goods will be emailed to you. Your order confirmation is below."
- Service products - "Thank you for your order at [Site Title]. We will be in contact shortly regarding the services you have ordered. Your order confirmation is below."
Customers can also choose to receive an email receipt for Point of Sale transactions. It’s not possible to customize this email.
Note: Customers may receive emails about unexpected payment failures after an attempted purchase. It’s not possible to customize these emails.
Subscriptions
If you sell subscription products, customers receive the same order emails listed above, plus a few emails specific to subscriptions:
- Subscription cancelled
- Payment failed - Sent when a subscription renewal can’t be processed because the subscriber’s payment fails. The email includes a prompt to update billing information.
By default, subscribers receive the Order Confirmed only once after the first purchase. You can change that in order email settings.
A customer's payment might fail due to issues with their payment method, your store's Stripe connection, or if you downgrade from the Commerce Advanced plan.
Subscribers don't receive reminder emails before their subscriptions renew.
Abandoned cart recovery
If you enable Abandoned Checkout Recovery, customers receive this email:
- Abandoned Checkout - Sent when a customer adds a product to their cart but doesn't buy it.
You can edit the email text and add these JSON variables:
- {website.baseUrl} - Your primary domain
- {website.siteTitle} - Your site title
This email includes an unsubscribe link, which can't be removed or customized.
Tip: Track cart abandonment trends and measure the success of the abandoned cart recovery email in Abandoned cart analytics.
Customer accounts
If you enable Customer Accounts, customers receive these emails:
- Welcome - Sent when a customer creates an account.
- Reset Password - Sent when a customer clicks the Forgot password? link and requests a reset email. Reset password links expire after 24 hours.
- Password Updated - Sent after a customer updates their password.
Waitlists
Enable product waitlists to email interested shoppers when sold-out items are back in stock. This email isn’t automatic. Instead, you’ll send waitlist emails from the Waitlists panel when you’re ready. Like other commerce email notifications, you can customize the email’s subject, title, and body text.
Customize emails
To customize an email, in the Home Menu, click Commerce, then click Customer notifications.
You can edit these fields, which apply to all emails:
- Reply-To - This is the email address that customers reply to when they receive an automatic email from your store. We recommend choosing an address you check often.
- From Email - This is the address emails are sent from. We recommend keeping the default (no-reply@squarespace.info) so they don't get marked as spam.
Depending on your email client, your site title may display as the contact name in your inbox.
Header and footer
This content displays above and below the main body of all emails. You can add these JSON variables, along with text, to the Header and Footer fields:
- {website.siteTitle} - Your site title
- {website.baseUrl} - Your primary domain
From here, you can also edit your business name, address, and tax registration ID. Your business name and address appear in email footers, and your tax registration ID or VAT ID number displays on invoices. Depending on your template, your address may also display on your website.
Tip: You can add a logo to your email header or footer with a code-based solution. For more information, view this post in the Squarespace Forum.
Keep in mind, custom code modifications fall outside the scope of our support. This means that we’re unable to help you set up or troubleshoot code-based solutions. For more help with customizing emails and using custom code, hire a Squarespace Expert.
Edit JSON variables
In the Customer notifications panel, click an email type to edit its subject line, title, and JSON variables. JSON variables automatically populate information about your store. As you change these variables, look at the preview beside the panel to see how they translate to your site.
In the Subject Line and Title fields, you can use these variables:
- %o - The order number
- %s - The title of your site
In the Message field, you can use these variables by placing them inside curly brackets, for example {order.displayId}:
| JSON variable | Description |
| customer.name | The full name (first and last) of the customer |
| giftCard.giftCardCodeLast4 | The last 4 digits of the gift card code |
| giftCard.recipientEmail | The gift card recipient's email address |
| hasPhysicalProduct | Section will appear if the order has at least one physical product |
| hasDigitalProduct | Section will appear if the order has at least one digital product |
| hasServiceProduct | Section will appear if the order has at least one service product |
| hasGiftCardProduct | Section will appear if the order has at least one gift card |
| order.displayId | The five digit "Order ID," e.g #00005 |
| order.refundTotalFormatted | The refund amount |
| order.submittedOn | The date/time the order was submitted. This is run through a formatter date function, so the default template says: {order.submittedOn|date %B %e, %Y %I:%M%p %Z} |
| order.url |
Show the order number with a link to the customer's account Note: Enable customer accounts before using this variable. |
| website.siteTitle | Your site title |
| %B | Full month name |
| %e | Day of month |
| %Y | Full year |
|
%I |
Hour of day, in 12-hour format |
|
%M |
Minute of hour |
|
%p |
"AM" or "PM" |
|
%Z |
Time zone name |
| JSON variable | Description |
| donor.name | The full name (first and last) of the donor |
| amountFormatted | Total amount donated |
| contribution.submittedOn | Just like order.submittedOn for Order emails. Same date formatting options apply |
| website.baseUrl | The URL of your homepage. If you have a custom domain, it'll be http://www.yourdomainname.com. If not, it'll be http://yoursitetitle.squarespace.com |
| JSON variable | Description |
| resetPasswordURL | A reset password link, which is unique to each Reset Password email. This links expires after 24 hours.Note: This variable is required for Reset Password emails. Otherwise the customer can’t reset their password. |
| customer.firstName | The first name the customer entered when creating their account |
| website.siteTitle | Your site title |
| JSON variable | Description |
| website.siteTitle | Your site title |
| website.baseUrl | The URL of your homepage. If you have a custom domain, it'll be http://www.yourdomainname.com. If not, it'll be http://yoursitetitle.squarespace.com |
When you're finished making changes, click Save. You can also send a test email, and restore the email to its default settings. It's not possible to add text links or files to Commerce email notifications.
Test emails include order details for a typical physical product order, even if you only sell digital or service products. Details include a placeholder tracking number and a shipping address, which aren't in real emails for digital or service products. To preview emails sent to customers for digital or service product orders, run a test order.
Note: We recommend having coding knowledge before customizing order emails with HTML and JSON. While we can help with the steps in this guide, we can't provide assistance for advanced code modifications using HTML or JSON. If you need more help, we recommend exploring the Squarespace Forum, or our list of resources to help with custom code.
Resend emails
You can resend the email notifications with a customer's shipment tracking number, digital download link, or gift card from the order summary. If a customer requests to send any of these notifications to a different address, you can change the email address before resending.
- In the Home Menu, click Commerce, then click Orders.
- Click any order to view the order summary.
- Click Email notifications. This tab lists the different notifications that have been sent to the customer.
- Choose the notification you want to resend.
- Verify or change the customer’s email address, and click Send.
- Tap Orders.
- Tap any order to view the order details.
- In the order details, tap Manage in the top-right corner.
- For pending orders, tap Resend Order Notifications.
- For fulfilled or cancelled orders, tap Order Confirmation, Order Fulfilled, or Digital Goods.
- Confirm or change the customer's email address.
- Tap Send.
- Tap Orders.
- Tap any order to view the order details.
- In the order details, tap Manage in the top-right corner.
- For pending orders, tap Resend Order Notifications.
- For fulfilled or cancelled orders, tap Order Confirmation, Order Fulfilled, or Digital Goods.
- Confirm or change the customer's email address.
- Tap Send.
Manage your email settings
Site Owners and contributors with Administrator and Store Manager permissions receive email confirmations for new orders, and, if enabled, low inventory.