Ecwid lives inside other sites (Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, Tilda, standalone Instant Sites) and runs the e-commerce piece. The transactional email flow is wholly owned by Ecwid — you cannot configure an SMTP relay, you cannot bring your own DKIM key, you cannot export bounce logs. What you can control is the sender address, the template content, and which DNS records are published for reputation.
Sender email (brand domain vs noreply@ecwid), template content, which notifications are enabled. DNS: SPF include for Ecwid, and optionally DKIM via Ecwid's branded sender setup.
The default sending path
Out of the box, Ecwid sends transactional notifications from no-reply@ecwid-shipping.com or a similar shared domain. The From display shows your store name, but the envelope is Ecwid's. Gmail shows Your Store via ecwid-shipping.com and Outlook treats it like transactional mail from a shared sender.
That is acceptable for small stores. It is not acceptable for anyone building long-term brand trust — the "via" string tells customers the email is sent by someone else, and the shared envelope means your deliverability rises and falls with Ecwid's other merchants.
Branded sender setup
Ecwid admin → Settings → Notifications → Sender email. Change to orders@yourstore.com. Ecwid generates a DNS entry to add:
; example, Ecwid as sender infra
yourstore.com. TXT "v=spf1 include:_spf.ecwid.com ~all"
; Ecwid-branded DKIM (if supported on your plan)
ecwid._domainkey.yourstore.com CNAME ecwid._domainkey.ecwid.com.
; DMARC — if you do not already have one, publish permissive
_dmarc.yourstore.com TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourstore.com"After propagation, Ecwid admin shows the authentication as verified. Gmail stops displaying the "via" disclaimer and reputation attaches to your domain rather than the shared Ecwid envelope.
As of Ecwid's current tiers, custom sender domain configuration requires a paid plan. On the free Starter tier you are stuck with the shared envelope. That is a real deliverability tax for free-tier stores.
The full notification list
Admin → Settings → Notifications enables and disables each template. Review these specifically:
- Order placed (customer) — the critical one. Test this first.
- Order placed (admin) — goes to the store owner. If you never see it, your own mail filter is probably to blame, not Ecwid.
- Shipping notification — fires when tracking is added. High open rate, high scrutiny.
- Order status changed — manual status update. Turn off if you do not use it; an unused template can misfire.
- Abandoned cart — this one is marketing, not transactional. Keep the subject and body honest to avoid classification as Promotions.
Template editing
Ecwid uses a block-based editor (on newer plans) plus a raw HTML mode for developers. The defaults are reasonably clean, but theme customisations often introduce:
- Oversized logos — upload trimmed assets, keep under 30 KB.
- Broken plain-text alt — the editor does not always regenerate the text part. View source of a real test message to confirm.
- Tracking-heavy links — Ecwid wraps some links for analytics. That adds redirector domains to the URL set, which can push Gmail to Promotions.
Testing Ecwid notifications
Ecwid admin has a "Send test" button per template. It sends with placeholder data to one address. Useful for layout, useless for placement.
Place a real test order against a set of seed mailboxes — Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, Mail.ru, Yandex — using a sandbox product and a $0.01 price. Walk through order placed, shipping, completed. Check each email.
20+ seed mailboxes, real inbox screenshots, SPF/DKIM/DMARC verdict per provider. Catches the issues Ecwid's own test button never will.
What you cannot do on Ecwid
- Replace Ecwid's sending infra with your own relay for native notifications.
- Get per-message bounce and complaint logs. Ecwid abstracts that away.
- Configure retry policy or rate limits.
- Change the Return-Path domain (bounces still go to Ecwid).