ShipStation gives you the ability to send up to four email notifications to your customers about the status of their shipment: Shipment Confirmation, Estimated Delivery Date, Out for Delivery, and Delivered.
In January of 2025, ShipStation introduced a new Customer Notification workflow. "Legacy Customer Notifications" or the "Customer Notification Legacy Workflow" refers to the Customer Notifications workflow on the ShipStation platform prior to January 2025.
How To Check Your Customer Notifications Workflow Type
Merchants with access to the current Customer Notification workflow will see the 'Preview Emails' button at the top left of the Emails tab in their Store Settings.
If you do not see this button please refer to the Legacy Customer Notifications guide.
The steps below reference the current Customer Notifications workflow, if your account does not have a Preview Emails button please see the Legacy Customer Notifications guide.
A valid email address must be present on the order for ShipStation to send shipment and delivery notifications successfully.
Customer notification emails are turned off by default in ShipStation since you may already be using your selling channel’s notification feature. When you enable customer notifications in ShipStation, we will include a flag in the marketplace notification that a shipment confirmation email has been sent to your customer. This will allow the selling channel to skip sending an additional email.
Customer notification emails are set up for each individual store connected to your ShipStation account, meaning they can be enabled for some stores and disabled for others. The Emails settings for your store determine the default behavior for all orders that import into ShipStation from that store.
Notifications Not Sent for Orders Marked as Shipped During Trial
While in your Trial period, ShipStation will not send Shipment Confirmation emails for orders that you manually mark as Shipped. To use the email notification feature for these shipments, you must sign up for a ShipStation plan.
To enable customer notifications for your store:
-
Go to the Emails tab in your store settings.
-
Select the checkbox next to the email notifications you want to send.
Email Type
Details
Shipment Confirmation
This email will notify buyers that their shipment is being prepared.
You can delay these emails until certain conditions are met. See the Delay Shipment Notification Emails section below for more information.
Estimated Delivery Date
ShipStation will notify buyers when the shipment has hit the mailstream and has an estimated delivery date.
Out for Delivery
ShipStation will notify buyers that their shipment is out for delivery.
Delivery Notification
ShipStation will notify buyers that their shipment has arrived at it’s final destination.
-
(optional) Add an email address to the Additional Settings field if you would like to receive a BCC copy of the notification sent to your buyer.
-
(optional) Preview your email(s) by clicking the Preview Emails button.
-
Click Save Changes.
Add Custom Branding to your Emails
ShipStation 's Customer Notification emails can include your store's logo and custom colors. See the Branded Tracking Page guide for more information.
Repeat the above steps for any store you wish to use ShipStation's customer notification emails.
When you enable customer notifications, ShipStation sends the shipment notification at the same time it sends the marketplace notification. By default, this occurs when you create the label for a shipment. However, you can delay the shipment notifications in each store's Emails settings.
Only the Shipment Confirmation Can Be Delayed
Settings to delay customer notifications only apply to the Shipment Confirmation Email. Currently you cannot delay any delivery notifications. Delivery notifications are triggered only when the carrier alerts ShipStation that the package has been delivered.
To delay notifications:
-
Go to the Emails tab in your store settings.
-
Select the The first of these conditions is met...
The default behavior for Send marketplace Notification when... is set to when Shipping label is created. To delay the notification you must select one of the conditional options.
-
Choose which condition must be met before ShipStation will send the notification.
Condition
Details
The shipment first hits the mail stream
ShipStation will send the notification when the carrier first notifies us it has received and scanned the shipment.
For carriers that electronically submit shipments, this can cause notifications to be sent before the shipment is in possession of the carrier.
This option can only be used for trackable services with carriers that automatically send tracking data back to ShipStation.
When this option is selected, ShipStation also provides the ability to set notification options for any un-tracked services.
At a specific time on the ship date
ShipStation will send the notifications at the specified time. This option uses the account time zone to determine when to send notifications.
Number of hour(s) elapsed after label creation...
ShipStation will send the notifications after the specified number of hours have passed from the time of label creation.
You can choose multiple options and ShipStation will send the notification when the first condition is met.
-
Click Save Changes.
These settings will apply to all shipments from now on. Repeat these steps for any store you'd like to use delayed notifications.
-
If you wish to add multiple email recipients to an order, use the Order Details screen on the Orders grid by clicking the order number and selecting Edit next to Recipient information. Separate each email address with a comma.
Some carriers only allow one email address
While Shipstation supports adding multiple emails for the recipient, some carriers will only accept one email per shipment. To create the label these carriers, you must remove the extra email addresses.
-
By default, notifications are sent from the email address Tracking@ShipStation.com unless you enter and verify a company email address in the Email field of your store's Branding tab. Review our What is Branding? article for details.
-
If delivery notification emails are enabled, ShipStation will email your customer as soon as the carrier notifies ShipStation that the package has been delivered. Depending on the carrier, this may happen immediately upon drop-off or several hours after the shipment has been delivered.
-
Delayed shipment notification emails are only available for services that include automatic tracking updates from the carrier.
-
If you want to receive a copy of your customer's email, enter an email address into the Additional Settings field in your store's Emails tab. This will tell ShipStation to add that email address as a BCC on every notification sent to your customers.
-
Some selling channels, including Amazon and Walmart, do not allow third-party apps like ShipStation to send email notifications directly to customers. For these selling channels, the email notification options will not be present in the store's Emails settings in ShipStation.
-
ShipStation cannot delay the notifications for orders Marked as Shipped or shipments fulfilled through a fulfillment provider.
-
If changing from delayed notifications to notify on label creation, ShipStation will not send notifications for shipments already created.