Article

How to Increase Sales by 14% With Shopify Post Purchase Emails Through Upsells and Repeat Customers

For 10 years in a row, email marketing has been the highest earning ROI channel for marketers.

However, most Shopify store owners aren’t aware that their post-purchase email flows can be used to promote new products and easily generate more sales.

For most merchants, post-purchase emails are just receipts — order confirmations and shipping notifications.

However, Shopify store owners are now seeing email marketing success by optimizing their post-purchase emails with personalized product recommendations, referral links, and upsells to drive repeat customer purchases and increase sales up to 14%.

In this article, we’ll explain what post-purchase emails are, how they improve customer retention and give tips on how to maximize these emails’ sales potential to boost ROI for your Shopify store.

What are post-purchase emails and why are they sent to customers?

Post-purchase email campaigns, or flows, are a series of emails that are sent to your customer after they have made a purchase from your ecommerce store.

The most common post-purchase emails are order confirmations and shipping confirmations. There are several more post-purchase email types you should send throughout your customer’s journey, including:

  • Replenishment emails to encourage customers to reorder their last transaction
  • Win-back emails to remind customers to revisit your store
  • Customer feedback emails
  • Review feedback emails
  • Abandoned checkout emails
  • Upsells and cross-selling emails
  • And more

Unlike standard promotional and bulk marketing emails, transactional emails have a high open-rate because customers are expecting them.

From the initial order confirmation to the win-back email, you should send your customers a steady stream of post-purchase emails to ensure they keep coming back to your store, make repeat purchases, and deepen their customer loyalty.

How do post-purchase emails improve customer retention?

Did you know one of the most common complaints of online shopping experiences is a lack of personalization? 

80% of consumers say they’re more likely to buy from a business that gave them a personally tailored experience.

By default, Shopify’s store builder comes with built-in email templates for post-purchase and transactional email flows

However, these unbranded email templates fail to impress your customers. They usually only show the essential details of your customers’ orders. This results in a missed personalized shopping experience for your customers, and a missed branding opportunity for your store.

Instead, treat every post-purchase email as another branding opportunity by closely matching your email’s styling with your Shopify store’s colors, logo, and aesthetics.

By optimizing your post-purchase email flows, you can send personalized product recommendations to each of your customers, using their first name as the promo code.

Additionally, sending frequent order updates to your shoppers enhances their experience and customer satisfaction because they aren’t left waiting to hear back from you about their order’s progress. 

8 tips to make more upsells, cross-sells, and improve customer retention using post-purchase email flows

Follow these tips to optimize your post-purchase emails for more sales and referrals while strengthening your customer relationship and extending your customer lifetime value (CLV).

1. Optimize your order confirmations with personalized product recommendations

Instead of sending out bulk promotional emails, you’ll have more success selling products through post-purchase emails by inserting product recommendations at the bottom of all of your order confirmations.

Order confirmations receive the highest open rates because customers are excited to see when their package will arrive.

Underneath your customer’s order details, include a section that says “recommended products just for you” and include between 2-4 products.

Using UpOrder’s app, you’ll be able to automatically recommend personalized products based on the customer’s shopping history, making sure only to recommend products they haven’t yet purchased.

2. Recoup losses by sending abandoned checkout emails

The abandoned checkout rate for ecommerce is quite high—around 69.57%

The main reasons for checkout abandonment are because of high costs, requiring an account, and a long checkout process.

However, by sending an abandoned checkout email, Shopify owners are able to recoup between 3% - 14% of their losses back.

Try using these headlines to grab your customer’s attention to bring them back to your store:

  • Oops! Looks like you forgot to checkout
  • You have items waiting in your cart
  • Please complete your purchase
  • We saved your cart just for you
  • Having trouble checking out? We’re standing by to help
  • Act fast to get 15% off your cart!

Shopify’s built-in post-purchase email templates allow merchants to send one abandoned checkout email per customer. 

However, with UpOrder, Shopify merchants can send up to two additional abandoned checkout notifications, increasing their success in recouping their losses.

3. Send post-purchase customer feedback emails for reviews on recent purchases

Sending post-purchase emails asking for your customer’s feedback has many benefits for your online store.

Not only are you re-engaging with your customers, but you’re also collecting valuable reviews on your products that will increase their visibility on your website.

Adding reviews to your products adds “social proof,” which tells other customers that your products are popular and trustworthy, which can increase your conversion rate.

But the simple act of reaching out to customers for feedback also shows that you value their feedback and that their opinion is important to you, which can strengthen your customer’s relationship with your brand.

4. Send win-back emails to convince inactive customers to revisit your store

Win-back emails are emails sent to inactive customers to get them to revisit your store — and they work! With a 45% success rate of getting customers to reopen your future emails.

Typically, win-back emails are sent every 30, 60, or 90 days to customers who have been inactive in your store.

Try implementing these win-back email subject titles to capture your inactive customer’s interest again:

  • [Name] we’ve missed you!
  • 20% off because we miss you
  • Here’s what you’ve missed while you were gone
  • [Name] we’ve been thinking of you lately!

5. Include referral links and incentives at the bottom of post-purchase emails

Drive more ecommerce sales by offering a “refer a friend” type email in your post-purchase email flows.

Extend an offer that gives your loyal customers 15% off their next purchase when their referral places their next order, and give their referral a 15% discount too.

6. Use your customer’s first name in their personalized promo code

Here’s a tip — you can use your customer’s first name as the basis for their promo code.

Instead of using a generic promo code like “AUG2022,” you can automatically create limited-use discount codes using your customer’s name, such as “ROSE20OFF.”

Creating promo codes using your customer’s name creates a more personalized experience, and leads to a better click-through rate too.

7. Create a sense of urgency with limited-use discount codes

In addition to creating unique discount codes, you can also create a sense of urgency by adding promo codes with a short expiration date to persuade your customer into making another purchase before the deal runs out.

8. Add social media links and blog posts 

Turn your first-time buyer into a lifelong follower of your store by including social media links and blog posts at the bottom of your post-purchase email flows.

By adding Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram links to your emails, you can grow your relationship with your customers and engage them across platforms, not just when they’re on your ecommerce site. Make sure to include blog posts as part of your content marketing plan to keep readers engaged with your website and updated on new products and announcements.

Try UpOrder and watch your post-purchase sales increase by 14%

UpOrder is a Shopify app that transforms your post-purchase email templates into a powerful sales channel.

Now you can drive repeat purchases, boost customer retention, and increase your sales by 14% easily through optimized, upgraded Shopify email notifications.

Download your free trial of UpOrder today. 

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