The five email flows every e-commerce brand should own
On stores we've reviewed, flows built from just these five sequences typically drive 25-35% of total email revenue from under 3% of total sends.
Welcome (3-email sequence, sent over 5 days)
A new subscriber is your highest-intent audience of the week. Email one introduces the brand and sets expectations for send frequency; email two answers the objection that stops most first purchases (shipping cost, sizing, returns); email three makes one clear, time-bound offer.
Browse abandonment (1-2 emails, triggered within 2 hours)
A visitor who viewed the same product twice in one session has told you what they want without adding it to a cart. A single, well-timed email with real product detail — not a generic 'we noticed you looked' — regularly outperforms a discount-led blast to the same segment.
Cart and checkout recovery (3 emails across 48 hours)
Message one at 1 hour is a plain reminder. Message two at 12 hours addresses shipping, returns and stock concerns. Message three at 36-48 hours introduces an incentive if margin allows — leading with an incentive too early trains customers to always wait for a discount.
Post-purchase
Delivery updates, care or usage instructions and a review request in the two weeks after delivery. This flow also carries the second-order ask, which typically costs a fraction of what the first sale did to acquire.
Win-back
Set the trigger window by product type, not a blanket 90 days. A consumable purchased monthly needs a 45-day win-back trigger; a coat or mattress needs closer to a year. One fixed window for the whole catalog wastes sends on customers who were never going to reorder yet.
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