Order confirmation email not received: the reply and fixes

When a customer says they got no order confirmation, first find out whether the order exists. If it does, resend the confirmation from the order's timeline and tell them where to look; if it doesn't, the payment probably didn't complete, and they need to know before they wait for a parcel that isn't coming.

Below are four replies, the causes to check in your store, and the rule in the UK and EU that makes the confirmation more than a courtesy. Words in double braces, like {{order_number}}, are blanks: fill each one from the order, never from memory.

First, find the order

In your Shopify admin, go to Orders and search. Shopify lets you search by order number, customer name or customer email address. If the customer has a confirmation number from the thank-you page, you can paste that into Filter orders too: Shopify creates the confirmation number at checkout, before the order itself, and records it in the order's timeline.

What you find decides the reply:

What you find	Reply
The order, with the right email address	Template 1: resend and point to spam
The order, with a mistyped email address	Template 2: correct it and resend
No order under any name, email or number	Template 3: the payment may not have gone through
The order, with a phone number and no email	Template 4: they checked out with a phone number

Template 1: the order exists

Hi {{first_name}},

Good news: your order {{order_number}} came through on {{order_date}}, for {{order_total}}.

I've just sent the confirmation again to {{customer_email}}. It comes from {{sender_email}}, so if it isn't in your inbox in a few minutes, please check your spam or junk folder and search for that address.

You'll get another email with tracking when it ships.

{{your_name}}

Naming {{sender_email}} helps more than it looks. If your store's sender email has been rewritten to Shopify's default address (see the causes below), the customer is searching their inbox for your shop's name and won't find it.

Template 2: the email address had a typo

Hi {{first_name}},

Thanks for letting me know. Your order {{order_number}} is fine — the confirmation went to {{email_on_order}}, which looks like a typo.

Can you confirm that {{corrected_email}} is the right address? As soon as you do, I'll update the order and resend the confirmation, so the shipping updates go to the right place too.

{{your_name}}

Ask before you change it, and send the order details only to an address the customer has confirmed. If the request comes from a different address than the one on the order, check that it's really the same person — for example, by asking for the order number and the delivery postcode.

Template 3: there's no order

Hi {{first_name}},

I've looked for your order under {{searched_details}} and can't find one, which usually means the payment didn't complete at checkout.

Could you check whether you were charged? If there's a payment from {{store_name}} on your statement, reply with the date and amount (no card details, please) and I'll trace it straight away. If there isn't, the order didn't go through, and you're welcome to place it again: {{store_url}}.

{{your_name}}

Never ask a customer to email a card number, even to "check" a payment. The date and amount are enough to search with. If a customer says their payment failed at checkout, Shopify's abandoned checkouts list in the Orders section shows each payment attempt in that checkout's timeline.

Template 4: they checked out with a phone number

If your checkout lets customers enter either an email address or a phone number, Shopify notes you may only have the one they chose. In supported countries, Shopify can send those customers the order confirmation as a text message, and the order status page lets them opt in to shipping updates by email.

Hi {{first_name}},

Your order {{order_number}} came through on {{order_date}}. At checkout it was placed with your phone number, {{masked_phone}}, rather than an email address, so there was no email address for the confirmation to go to.

If you'd like updates by email instead, reply to confirm the address and I'll add it to the order.

{{your_name}}

How to resend the confirmation in Shopify

From Shopify's help page:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Orders and click the order.
2. In the Timeline section, click Resend email under the order confirmation.
3. In the dialog, choose to resend the email to the customer, or send a copy to yourself to see what they received.
4. Click Send.

If the address was wrong, fix it first: in the order's Customer section, click the menu, then Edit contact information, update the email, and click Save. Select Update customer profile if you want the new address saved to the customer's profile as well.

Causes to check in your store

One customer missing an email is usually their spam folder. Several in a week is usually your settings.

Cause	What to check
Spam or junk folder	Shopify's own advice: ask the customer to check spam or junk, and if it keeps happening, to give an address with a different email provider.
Typo in the address	The email on the order. Fix it and resend, as above.
Phone checkout	The contact on the order. If there's only a phone number, there was no confirmation email to send.
Sender email not authenticated	Settings > Notifications, Sender email section. Gmail and Yahoo require domain authentication and a DMARC record for branded senders; if those records aren't set up, Shopify rewrites your sender to an address like store+123@shopifyemail.com.
"No-reply" sender	Shopify warns that some email hosts reject sender addresses containing "no-reply", "do-not-reply" or "noreply". Use a real address customers can answer.
No order at all	Search again by name, email and confirmation number, then check abandoned checkouts.

On notification settings: Shopify says most customer notifications are sent automatically and can't be deactivated, and the order confirmation isn't in its list of the ones you can switch off (on Shopify Plus, the store owner can ask Shopify Support to turn off specific notifications). So a missing confirmation is rarely a toggle. The sender email settings are the place to look. To set up an address customers can actually write back to, see setting up a support email for Shopify.

The rule: a confirmation is required in the UK and EU

In the UK, regulation 16 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 says: "In the case of a distance contract the trader must give the consumer confirmation of the contract on a durable medium." It must arrive "within a reasonable time after the conclusion of the contract", and no later than delivery of the goods. It must include the pre-contract information listed in Schedule 2 unless you've already given it on a durable medium. Regulation 16(5) adds that the confirmation is treated as provided "as soon as the trader has sent it".

In the EU, Article 8(7) of the Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU says the same: confirmation "on a durable medium within a reasonable time after the conclusion of the distance contract, and at the latest at the time of the delivery of the goods".

So a resend to a customer who lost it in spam is good service. An order that never had a confirmation sent at all, because there was no email address on it, is worth fixing before the parcel arrives.

This is a summary, not legal advice. Sources read on 20 October 2026.

When AI drafts the reply

Most of this reply is checking, not writing: whether the order exists, which address it went to, when it was placed. A drafting tool that can't see your orders will say "your order is confirmed" whether it is or not.

Corresso leaves the order number and dates as blanks, and a rule holds any draft where the AI wrote one itself. With Shopify connected (read-only), the customer's orders appear beside their email, so whoever is answering sees at once whether there's an order to resend. Resending and editing the contact details stay in your Shopify admin, and a person reads every draft and presses Send. The AI model never sees the order data. See Corresso for Shopify stores, or other common replies in the where is my order guide.