Transactional Email Templates in B2B Edition

We’ve added new features for customizing B2B Edition’s email templates, which apply the settings used in BigCommerce store emails to edit text, insert custom code, and preview your changes. 

This update is available for B2B Edition users on the Buyer Portal and legacy storefront experiences.

Why is this happening?

Emails notifications are a vital part of the B2B customer experience, and it is essential to have the right tools for communicating information and expressing your brand. 

By extending the Transactional Email experience to B2B Edition, your store has an extensive and familiar interface for tasks like:

• Creating a global “default” for each template, or designing unique templates for each storefront

• Enabling or disabling email templates in each storefront

• Personalizing emails with buyer-specific variables like Company name or invoice links

• Managing all aspects of email styling by editing the template’s CSS code

• Previewing your changes in the B2B Edition dashboard before applying them

• Sending a test email to see how it appears in your inbox

• Reverting customized templates to their default values

What’s new with B2B Edition email settings?

The Settings › Emails area of the B2B Edition has been redesigned and reorganized to match the Marketing › Transactional Emails area of your BigCommerce control panel. 

You can easily view each email template, the action that triggers it, and whether or not it is currently enabled from the template list. Use the drop-down list at the top of the page to select whether you are viewing the global email templates, or templates associated with one of your storefronts.

The Edit page for each template is organized into a Phrases tab for creating or editing its text, a Code tab for customizing the email subject and modifying its HTML and CSS content, and a Preview tab to test your changes before applying them to your store.

Each template includes settings that provide enhancements to your customization experience, such as sending a test email to your user account address, using the global template for select storefronts, and resetting the template to its default values. 

Certain templates also have unique settings for configuring how often a buyer is informed of quote and invoice due dates, or for specifying which members of your staff are notified when a new quote request is created.

To learn more about customizing your B2B email content and appearance, see B2B Edition Email Templates in the Knowledge Base.

Upgrading your email templates

If you are provisioning B2B Edition for the first time, all email templates use Transactional Email content and settings by default — no action is required. 

If you are currently using B2B Edition, your dashboard will have the updated interface, and any uncustomized email templates are automatically upgraded.

If you’ve made customizations to any of your B2B email templates, their contents have been maintained and there are no changes to the emails your buyers receive. However, you will not be able to use any of the new customization features with legacy templates until they have been migrated to the Transactional Email experience.

When you’re ready to upgrade a legacy template, go to Settings › Emails in the B2B Edition dashboard and click on the template’s name to edit. Before taking any further action, we strongly recommend copying your template’s code from the Code tab and saving it in a plain text editor like NotePad or TextEdit. 

Once upgraded, you will not be able to return to the legacy template or recover any customizations.

After saving a copy of your current template, open the Action menu at the top of the page and select Reset to system defaults. Your template is now compatible with Transactional Emails settings, and you can redesign it as needed.

Repeat these steps for each customized template to fully apply Transactional Emails functionality to your B2B emails.

The final word

Having a robust set of template customization tools is a must-have for creating emails that communicate clearly with your customers while matching the look and feel of your store. 

See B2B Edition Email Templates in the Knowledge Base for information on template settings and examples of how you can customize your email content. 

Unlock the potential of your B2B Edition emails with Transactional Email templates today!