Email newsletters are an essential component in any ecommerce business’s overall marketing strategy. They communicate effectively, drive sales, increase customer engagement, enrich company branding, and nurture customer relationships, just to name a few benefits.

Nevertheless, it can be difficult to get inspired when developing your own ecommerce newsletters. It’s hard to get your message across in a fresh, creative, and effective way that’s true to your brand.

If you’re finding yourself in need of some ecommerce newsletter ideas, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve curated a list of 10 great examples to get your creative juices flowing, along with some tips and tricks to keep in mind along the way.

  1. Hair for the Girls 
  2. Everything Just Baked
  3. Lilou Jewelry
  4. Burgess Sweaters
  5. Little Whimsy
  6. Cheeks & Co
  7. Fish & Family Seafoods
  8. Go To Bed
  9. Haume
  10. Little Whimsy

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Our top 10 best ecommerce newsletter examples

There are tons of different ways to go about putting together a great ecommerce newsletter. Most importantly, it should represent your brand, capture a reader’s attention, and contain genuinely useful information.

All the below newsletter examples have different stand-out elements, so get ready for some serious inspiration.

1. Hair for the Girls

The best ecommerce newsletters offer customers something of value, whether that’s a discount code, a special promotion or exclusive information. Add a sense of urgency into the equation, and you’re good to go.

The numbers speak for themselves. An Experian report discovered that emails conveying a sense of urgency had 14% higher click-to-open rates, 59% higher transaction-to-click rates, and 2x higher general transaction rates when compared with average email marketing communications.

Pro tip: Limited-time offer emails are especially effective if you convey urgency in your subject lines. 

This Hair for the Girls email does a great job of offering subscribers a great deal that’s only valid for a limited period of time. They’re able to take 15% off by using the code WKNDVIBES, but only until Sunday night at 11:59pm. 

We love that Hair for the Girls is conveying a sense of urgency in their email newsletter while still keeping things relaxed. Basically, they’re offering a limited-time deal without going over the top and coming off as overly intense or sales-focused. 

Their color palette is also calming and the images they included evoke a happy and laid-back atmosphere. 

2. Everything Just Baked

Sometimes the best email marketing campaigns let the products do the talking. Instead of relying on flashy graphics, make what you’re actually selling the star of your ecommerce newsletter. Customers love seeing what they’re going to be buying, after all.

The above Everything Just Baked newsletter exemplifies this strategy perfectly. As a bakery based in New Jersey, they’ve got some seriously mouth-watering products to feature. One look at this ecommerce newsletter either leaves you craving cookies or debating whether chocolate chip, oatmeal, sugar or snicker-doodle is your favorite flavor. That’s certainly great news for their cookie sales.

Other than the cookie images, we like that Everything Just Baked has kept their newsletter layout simple and minimal. They provide all the essential information about each kind of cookie and nothing more. They’ve also stayed consistent with their branding colors of white and red.

Furthermore, they’ve done a great job of including a CTA button complete with fun copy beside each cookie, along with a concluding button at the end. Of course, all buttons lead to their online store where customers can browse baked goods to their hearts’ content.

Check out our guide to the 22 best email newsletter services!

3. Lilou Jewellery

It’s safe to say that we all receive a large number of emails every day. In fact, the average inbox has 200 emails in it at any given time.

The large quantity of email marketing communications being sent every day certainly makes the market more competitive. It means that email marketers have to think of creative ways to make their ecommerce newsletters extra readable and stand out from the masses.

Lilou Jewellery’s email is one of our best newsletter examples because it gets their message across quickly and effectively. A simple glance informs the reader that they’re having a 30% off sale. Most impressive of all, they don’t even have to read more than a few words to understand the newsletter’s call to action. 

Then, if the reader wants more information or additional details, they’ll scroll down to read the rest of the message.

4. Burgess Sweaters

If you want to put together an excellent ecommerce email campaign, images are your best friend. Not only do they allow you to show off your products, but they also contribute to your brand experience, make your emails easier to read, are more memorable than text, and contribute to more successful emails overall. 

Burgess Sweaters has done a great job of starting off their fashion newsletter with some eye-catching images. They’re showing off their new collection for summer, so we love the beachy vibe they’ve chosen. We also love the font they’ve overlaid on top of their images, providing additional context without taking away from the visual impact.

For the best results, avoid using free or stock images in your ecommerce email newsletters. Instead, include:

  • Your brand’s own images
  • Screenshots
  • Customer images
  • Charts and graphics
  • Cartoons, memes and GIFs

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5. Little Whimsy

It’s not enough to upload new arrivals onto an ecommerce website and leave it at that. Sure, your most loyal customers will probably come across them, but you’ll need to take things a step further in order to reach a wider audience. 

An ecommerce newsletter is a great way to promote new products as they arrive on your site.

As you can see, Little Whimsy has put together a super cute email that shows off their latest fall arrivals perfectly. Their individual products stand out because they’ve been organized into different color blocks, and they’re all paired with adorable photos. This is also one of our favorite ecommerce newsletter ideas because of how they’ve integrated a cozy fall color palette throughout their entire message. 

Ecommerce newsletters are also great places to show off your products in action. You can see a hint of this in Little Whimsy’s bottom row of photos where you can see children actually using their dough cutters and bubble wands.

6. Cheeks & Co

Since ecommerce is all about buying and selling products, it makes sense that ecommerce newsletters typically focus on sales. Nevertheless, ecommerce brands shouldn’t make their communications about sales all the time. There are lots of other creative ways to promote your products.

This Cheeks & Co newsletter does a great job of showcasing one of their products in an unexpected way. Instead of encouraging their customers to simply buy their mineral sunscreen, they’re marketing it through a contest instead.

Put simply, people love contests. Not only are they fun and engaging, but they’ve also been shown to bring in 34% of new customers on average.

We also love Cheeks & Co’s image-focused email and the fact that they’re cross-promoting their Instagram page through their contest. Win-win.

7. Fish & Family Seafoods

At Flodesk, we’re lovers of great design, clean lines, gorgeous images, and a healthy amount of white space. We think that the best emails contain those same elements.

This might be a matter of personal opinion, but many ecommerce newsletters come off as way too busy. When you open up your inbox and are faced with flashing images, GIFs, lots of bright colors, and pop-ups, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I don’t know about you, but it certainly doesn’t put me in the mood to shop. It puts me in the mood to turn off my computer and walk away.

Put simply, the old refrain ‘less is more’ certainly holds true in the email marketing world. All you need is your company branding, a captivating graphic, some essential information, and a clear CTA. The Fish & Family Seafoods newsletter above is a great example of that.

Fish & Family Seafoods is a sustainable, small-scale, family-run fish retailer based in Alaska, which is perfectly reflected in the message above. They’ve got a beautiful photo of one of the company owners working on the boat, their logo, and some short-and-sweet copy promoting the beginning of their summer fish sale. What more do you need?

8. Go To Bed

A great way to thank new subscribers and pave the way for loyal customers is by offering them a free gift or discount code when they join your mailing list. It also helps you increase conversion rates, build brand loyalty, and make more sales all around.

This is especially pertinent for ecommerce businesses as customers who use online coupons have been shown to spend 24% more than average.

Many companies deliver free gifts and coupon codes to their new subscribers via welcome emails. In Go To Bed’s above newsletter example, they thank readers for subscribing to their mailing list and give them a 10% off coupon code for their next order.

Go To Bed’s example is also a great first newsletter because it’s so consistent with their branding. They’ve also featured their best-selling product front and center, so customers will know exactly what to look for when they start browsing.

9. Haume

Newsletters provide a great space for any ecommerce business to introduce themselves and get to know their customers. Nowadays, shoppers are savvier than ever and want in-depth information about the brands they choose to support. 

Modern ecommerce goes far beyond the transactional. A SproutSocial report found that customers want to feel connected with their favorite companies, which they defined as:

  • Trusting a brand (66%)
  • A brand aligning with their values (53%)
  • A brand understanding them and their wants (51%)

In order to foster that sense of connection, it’s important that you tell your company’s story so that customers can get a real sense of what drives your business and what happens behind the scenes.

We’re big fans of the email newsletter above because of how the brand Haume introduces themselves to their customers. Haume is a luxury home store and space planning company, so they talk about what their namesake means to them as well as offer exclusive access to a new product launch.

10. Little Whimsy

Sending out relevant gift guides is a great way to showcase your products in a new light in your ecommerce newsletters. They’re also great tools for driving sales as 54% of holiday shoppers have been shown to use retailer recommendations when purchasing gifts.

Even better, promoting your products as gifts is a great way to bring in new customers. If someone receives a present they love, they’re likely to purchase from that company in the future.

Gift guides aren’t only for holiday season newsletters either. As you can see above, Little Whimsy put together a fantastic gift guide for Father’s Day. Some other possibilities include guides for:

  • Birthdays
  • Anniversaries
  • Valentine’s Day
  • Mother’s Day
  • Housewarming gifts
  • Host/hostess gifts
  • Thank you gifts
  • Retirement gifts

Little Whimsy has done a great job of putting together an informative ecommerce newsletter with tons of different Father’s Day gift options. They’ve showcased their products well and included a lot of variety. We also like that they’ve included gifts for mothers in the same email, which makes it inclusive for those with different family situations. 

Tips for excellent ecommerce email marketing campaigns

Establish an objective

It might sound obvious, but establishing an objective is a key step in putting together an excellent ecommerce newsletter. It will provide you with direction and inspiration, as well as ultimately make it easier for you to assess your email’s success.

If you haven’t set an objective for an email before, it takes a little bit of practice. Here are a few examples:

  • I want to inform the reader about our upcoming sale
  • I want to reward loyal customers with exclusive access to a new product launch
  • I want to introduce our brand to new customers

Spend time on your subject line

The subject line is one of the most important components of any ecommerce newsletter. Not only is it the first thing most readers see, but it will also help them decide whether they even open your email or not.

There are many different ways to go about crafting the perfect subject line, but here are some of Flodesk’s favorites:

  • Keep it under 50 characters
  • Only capitalize the first word to keep things personal and casual
  • Add a relevant emoji (but not too many)
  • Avoid too much capitalization or too many exclamation points
  • Use action words 
  • Create urgency without sounding spammy (last chance or hurry rather than urgent, for example)

Keep your click-through rate in mind

A variety of metrics are used in order to determine an email’s overall success. One of the most typical is your open rate, which shows the percentage of subscribers who opened your email.

Nevertheless, open rates are becoming less reliable metrics due to new privacy measures, especially Apple Mail’s Privacy Protection setting. Basically, these kinds of settings can make open rates appear higher than they really are.

Instead, you can start to analyze your ecommerce newsletters’ click-through rates, which tell you the amount of subscribers who clicked on a link in your email. 

In order to do this effectively, you’ll need to include at least one link in your newsletter and establish a benchmark click-through rate for your business.

Focus on one call-to-action

It’s important that your ecommerce newsletter has one call-to-action, or one action that you want your subscribers to take after reading your email. Emails with multiple calls to action are busy, confusing, and won’t help you reach your email marketing objectives. 

Your subscribers will end up taking actions you don’t want or losing interest and doing nothing at all. 

For example, if you’re sending out an ecommerce newsletter about the new arrivals in your store, your one call-to-action should be getting customers to visit your online store’s new arrivals page.

Ex: Shop our brand new arrivals here 💫

Use an email marketing template

Let’s face it, putting together an effective ecommerce newsletter is hard work! It takes a lot of trial, error, testing, and editing. Want to make the process a little more straightforward? Try using an email marketing platform that has ready-to-use ecommerce templates

Flodesk has a large variety of email templates that are absolutely gorgeous and designed for success, will stand out in any inbox, and are perfect for ecommerce businesses. If you’re interested in trying them out for yourself, click here to sign up for our free trial. No strings attached.

For more tips, check out our article on how to format a perfect newsletter!

Ecommerce newsletter FAQs

1. Are ecommerce newsletters still effective?

The short answer is: absolutely! Email marketing has been around for a long time, but it certainly isn’t going anywhere. Billions of emails are sent every day, and it’s one of the most popular marketing channels out there. This is especially the case for small to medium-sized businesses

Couple that with the fact that ecommerce is more popular than ever and you’ve got a match made in heaven.

In fact, it’s been shown that as many as 91% of people want to receive promotional emails from their favorite businesses, so why not give them what they want?

2. What’s the best time to send out an ecommerce newsletter?

There’s a lot of debate about the best time to send out ecommerce newsletters. You may have to do some testing with your specific audience to figure out the best strategy for your business.

Nevertheless, there are a few general rules you can follow:

  • Avoid sending ecommerce newsletters on the weekend. Stick to weekdays, ideally Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
  • In terms of the time of day, aim for around 8am (those who check their emails first thing), 1pm (lunch break), and between 4pm-6pm (after work). These times are roughly based on a typical 9am to 5pm schedule, but can vary depending on where you are in the world.
  • Don’t send ecommerce newsletters on holidays.

3. How can I get started sending my own ecommerce newsletters?

First things first, you’ll need to find an email marketing platform that can help make your ecommerce newsletter dreams a reality. 

We don’t mean to be biased, but Flodesk is a perfect solution for you. We’ve got beautiful templates you won’t find anywhere else, a flat rate plan you can rely on, and a platform that’s easy for anyone to use.

We’ve also got a 30-day free trial, so what are you waiting for?