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I sell products which we deliver. I need to send delivery information to the customer. Customer has not subscibed to emails. I'm not allowed to email them through Shopify. Customer does not get information and them complains we don't give them enough information. There has to be a work around this or do I just email them from outside Shopify?
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This is an accepted solution.
That way, you won’t have to manually track orders placed months in advance.
Lily!
Hi @LordFarquaad,
This is a common frustration for Shopify merchants since Shopify’s email rules restrict contacting non-subscribed customers outside of order notifications.
But you do have some workarounds:
If customers provide a phone number at checkout, you can send delivery updates via SMS. Shopify supports SMS notifications, or you can use an app like SMSBump or Postscript to automate messages. Customers are more likely to read texts than emails anyway!
Even if a customer hasn’t subscribed to emails, Shopify’s Order Confirmation and Shipping Confirmation emails are still sent.
You can customize these in:
Shopify Admin > Settings > Notifications > Order Confirmation / Shipping Confirmation
Add tracking details, expected delivery times, or even a link to a dedicated FAQ page.
Since Shopify doesn’t allow direct emails to non-subscribers, you can manually send updates from your own business email.
If doing this manually is too much work, you can automate it with tools like Gmail + Zapier or Klaviyo transactional emails (though Klaviyo might still need opt-ins).
Apps like ReConvert let you customize the Shopify Thank You page (the page customers see after checkout) to include detailed delivery instructions.
If you want to email them in the future, you’ll need explicit consent. You can:
- Add a "Subscribe for Delivery Updates" checkbox at checkout
- Offer a small discount or incentive for subscribing
If delivery confusion is hurting your customer experience, I'd recommend a mix of SMS + clear Shopify email notifications to avoid complaints.
Hope this helps!
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Lily!
Hi Lily,
Thank you for your reply. We deliver children's educational programs where a component is physically delivered, physically collected and then we also need to provide instruction throughout the program.
We can't use SMS because the programs are normally purchased by the school's admin staff and the school's landline is supplied - the "deliver to" person is not always the "use the product" person or the "ordered it" person.
The order may be placed up to 12 months in advance of the program so sending instructions on the confirmation or thank you would be pointless.
So some emails we send from Shopify and some we send from Gmail which is dumb but probably makes Shopify feel good.
This is an accepted solution.
That way, you won’t have to manually track orders placed months in advance.
Lily!
That's actually really interesting - we have up to 600 clients per year and we have a "we are delivering", a "what to expect now that you have it" and a "we are collecting" email that need to go to each customer. If we can automate it all then we don't have to use Shopify at all. I'm not sure if we can make it work but it is worth looking into for sure.
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