Order confirmation

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The Design Need:

Users need to get confirmation after placing an order. They need feedback on their purchase process.

Design Solution:

Show an order confirmation page and send a confirmation mail after the user has completed a purchase. This will provide feedback and a last check to assure the customer that the purchase was successful.

Design best practices for confirmation pages and emails:

  • Show a confirmation page and send a confirmation e-mail, many users keep these mails to follow-up on their order.
  • Allow for easy printing of the confirmation page.
  • Make it possible to use the confirmation page and email as receipt. Many users need receipts for expense reimbursement or tax records.
  • Provide all necessary info users need when they contact customer service or want to track down their order in a different way.
  • Explain to the user how to modify their order before shipping in case they discover an error in their confirmation.
  • Structure the information so it can be easily skimmed by the reader.
  • A confirmation page and email should at least contain the following information:
    • Thank you message and confirmation the order was successfully placed and received
    • Order number and date
    • Overview of the ordered items, including the amounts, special remarks, gift messages etc.
    • Pricing overview, including: total amount, pricing for each item, tax, shipping cost,…
    • Payment method and status, if a credit card was used show the last few digits of the card number
    • Shipping & billing address
    • Shipping method, estimated delivery date and (if possible) tracking information
    • Contact information
  • Additional information communicated either via the confirmation page or email:
    • Email address the confirmation email was send to
    • Coupons for future purchase
    • If a account was created information on how to manage the stored personal information.
  • Pay attention to the design of your confirmation email:
    • Make sure you are not mistaken for spam
    • Make the “from field” recognisable, use the company or brand name
    • Write a good subject line that tells the user why they receive the mail. A optimal combination of from field and subject line tells the user the order was placed/shipped and where they placed the order. So the email only needs to be opened to check for more detail if needed.
    • Do not scatter the information over more separate emails than necessary, often it is sufficient to send two: a transaction confirmation and a shipping confirmation.

When to use:

In all cases users order and pay for products or services online.

Why use this solution (rationale):

Buying online will never give the clean simple feedback of walking out the store with the bought goods. Online we thus need to build in confirmations that provide the user with the same level of trust that their purchase was successful. The order confirmation is the last step in a checkout process. A checkout process should contain the following steps:

  1. Order summary
  2. Payment
  3. Confirmation

More info elsewhere:

• Categorized as Design Patterns