Email settings in WooCommerce – .com

In today’s tutorial we are going to see how to configure email settings in WooCommerce, and what are the best practices.

Email settings

This WooCommerce configuration page is found under the “Emails” tab of the “WooCommerce/Settings” menu.

This options page will allow us to configure everything related to the emails sent by WooCommerce. Who do you send them to, how do you send them, what will they look like, what information will they contain, and even how to modify them.

Email Notifications

The first section that we see in that tab is the “Email Notifications”, and basically consists of a list of all the emails (notifications) that WooCommerce can send, here we have it:

By default, we see that there are currently 10 notification types. But this may vary depending on the plugins that we have installed. For example, if we are using a plugin like the one we use in , we will find several more notifications, related to the registrations and deregistrations of our partners.

But if we don’t have any plugins installed, these 10 will be the ones we can configure. Let’s take a quick look at all of them:

• New order: This notification is received by administrator of the store, and it is the one that notifies you that there has been a new order. The client does not receive itbut the administrator, so you know that someone has made a purchase.
• new canceled: This notification is received by administrator of the store, and is the one that notifies you that an order has been cancelled. Orders canceled before were normally pending or on hold.
• Failed order: This notification is received by administrator of the store, and it is the one that notifies you that the order has been failed.
• Processing your order: This notification is received the clientand informs you that your request has been received and paid correctly, and it is being processed.
• Completed order: This notification is received the clientand informs you that your request has been completed and sent correctly, or that it can now be picked up in the store, if that were the case.
• Processing returned: This notification is received the client, and informs you that your order has been returned. This occurs when a refund is made.
• Customer invoice: This notification is received the clientand although it is called an “invoice”, it is actually more of a receipt or ticket, since by default it does not cover the legal invoice requirements in Spain.
• Note to the client: This notification is received by the customer when a note is sent from the order. More information in the .
• Restore password: The email that the client will receive if he forgets his password, and wants to reset it from the “My account” page. More information in the tutorial
• New account: The email that the customer will receive if they register during the purchase process, or from the “My account” page. You also have more information in the tutorial.

If you have any questions about each order status, I recommend that you look at the corresponding links. And if you want to create new types of status, take a look at the .

Well, in any case, from now on, the operation is exactly the same in each and every one of the 10 notifications. We just have to select the one we want by clicking on its name or on the little gear on the right, and we will see the following screen:

In this case we see the “New order” screen, but it is the same for all of them. The parameters that we can adjust are the following:

• Enable disable: This will turn that notification on or off. If we have the box active, that email will be sent. If it is not, those emails will not be sent.
• Recipients: Here goes the email or emails of those who will receive the notification. We can put as many runs as we want, always separated by commas. This box is only in the first three notifications. In the rest, only the client will receive it.
• Affair: This will be the subject of the email that will be sent. We can write whatever we want, or even use some variables that will be modified based on each request, namely:
  • {site_title} – The name of the website will appear. Since it will always be the same, we can simply write it down.
  • {order_number} – The order ID will appear. This will change with each order, obviously.
  • {order_date} – The date of the order will appear dynamically, depending on the moment in which the order was placed.
• Email Header: This will be the title within of the mail. Let’s not confuse it with the subject of the email (previous point).
• Email type: We can choose the type of mail that we will send. We can choose between HTML, Text or both:

  Although we can choose, the most normal thing in this case is to leave the option that comes by default, that of “HTML”. That will cause an email formatted in a table to be sent, with all the related information, as we can see here:

  On the contrary, the email in text version would be this:

  So, we only have to choose the type of mail (or send both), and ready. Although I already tell you that it is normal to use only the HTML version.

• HTML Template: The last point will allow us to modify the content of the mail. That is, the “interior” of it. Whether it is the HTML version or the Text version. We will be able to choose exactly what we send. But be careful, because for that we will need to know PHP. If that is the case, we simply have to click on the “Copy file to theme” button, and then on “View template”. And that will open this template editor in the control panel itself:

  There we “simply” modify what we want and click “Save changes”. In any case, I do not recommend using this editor at all, because in the event that we make a mistake, we can mess things up. Better let’s use an FTP editor like FileZilla or Coda. More information in the tutorial or in the .

  And if you want to do these things without having to touch code, take a look at the plugin, much more intuitive.

Sender Options Email

Going back to the “Emails” tab, the next option we see is the one poorly translated as “Sender Options Email”. Basically there we will enter the name and the email that we want to appear as the sender:

We only have to take into account one point in this option. If we use an email with a domain distinct to the domain of the web, it is very likely that the emails will not arrive.

So, if I put email “joan@.com”, but the website was “mi-tienda-chula.com”, most likely because it does not match, it will be detected as SPAM. For more information on this, take a look at the tutorial .

This is especially important if you are going to use marketing plugins to increase your sales, such as the one from or the one from , since all of them are based on sending emails to customers to increase sales or repeal them in case they have not purchased.

email template

Finally, this page of options allows us to choose some details of the style of the mail that is going to be sent. It’s not much, but enough to customize the emails a bit:

The 6 options are the following, and they only affect the HTML version of the email:

• Header Image: We can enter the URL of the image that we want to use as the header of the email. By default no image is sent.
• Base colour: The base color that you can see in the previous email image in HTML format.
• Background color: The greyish color that you can see in the background in the same image.
• Body Background Color: The background color of the body of the email, where the text itself is.
• Body Text Color: That easy, that simple. The color of the email text.

As you can see, it’s not something to get excited about, but at least we can use the corporate colors of our business instead of those of WooCommerce, and we can even put our logo.

Summary and conclusion

The emails that WooCommerce sends are essential to keep both the administrator and the customers informed about the status of the orders.

Thanks to the email options, we can activate or deactivate 10 types of notifications, modify their content, establish the sender and even customize the style.

As always, you already know that if you want to learn more and better, take a look at , and if you sign up you will have access to all WooCommerce courses Already more of .