Does Shopify have email hosting? Sooner or later, every Shopify customer faces the email hosting issue on their store as the Shopify platform doesn't provide built-in email hosting, neither do they plan on it soon. It means that you can only have one email address for all purposes of communication with your buyers. Most merchants find it inconvenient. Statistically, a successful business uses up to 5 email accounts on average.
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Free trialHowever, don't worry! As usual, there is a way out, even more than one. In this guide, we'll try to give you a short overview of the most available options.
Very few entrepreneurs would risk their reputations and communicate with clients through Gmail or Yahoo accounts. It looks more professional to use an email with a brand name. That's why merchants usually use a personal domain name. Another reason for doing it is that you cannot set up email forwarding on your store without a custom domain.
Email forwarding is the easiest way to let your website visitors write to multiple fancy custom email addresses with your brand domain. All the letters sent there will be automatically redirected to an email account of your choice.
To purchase a domain on Shopify, click Domains in the sidebar of your store admin and then press the button "Buy a new domain." Type in the input box the name you want to use, and you'll see all available extensions and their price. Choose one and click Buy. The purchased domain name will appear in the "Shopify managed domains" section.
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To transfer your third-party domain to Shopify, select "Transfer domain" and work through the 3 steps they provide you.
Now, you are ready to proceed with the email forwarding setup for Shopify-managed domains.
Choose the domain you want to use email forwarding with and click it.
Click the "Add forwarding email address" button in the appeared menu.
Type the address your clients will use to contact your company in the "STORE EMAIL ADDRESS" input. There's no need to include the domain name, as it's already there by default.
In the "FORWARDING EMAIL ADDRESS" input, type the address to the messages that will be forwarded. It can be any existing email account you want.
Save the settings.
If you want to create another email address, you must repeat the above-listed steps. You can add any number of emails depending on your business needs. New addresses are not necessarily associated with only one email. Messages sent to created addresses can be forwarded to different email accounts.
As you can see, it is pretty easy to set up email forwarding for domains bought on or transferred to the Shopify platform. Unfortunately, this method doesn't allow you to reply to your customers without revealing your regular email address. However, it can be useful for accepting requests and other kinds of one-way correspondence.
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In case it is crucial for your business to have full email functionality (sending to your clients and receiving from your corporate domain name), you need to use a third-party email hosting service provider like Zoho or G Suite. Popular options include:
Zoho is the perfect choice for small businesses with limited funds and those who don't want to spend much on email hosting. It offers a free plan for up to 5 users, affordable premium plans with advanced features. Zoho also provides custom domain support and secure email hosting to streamline your communication.Zoho will even assist you with changing your DNS records to access your emails easily.
First, you need to create a free account there. Go to Zoho Mail and press the "Sign up now" button with the "Business Email" option selected.
Choose a pricing plan, pick the one that meets your business needs the most. There is also a free package. You can add up to 5 users and have email hosting for a single domain using that.
After, enter your domain name in the appearing text box and fill out the form provided.
The next step is to verify your domain.
In the dropdown menu, select your DNS provider. In our case, it would be the "Open SRS / Squarespace / Shopify" option.
Copy the text inside the “Value / Points To / Destination” box. It is a TXT record you need to associate with Shopify.
From the Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Domains > Shopify managed domains and choose the domain you're setting up email forwarding for.
On the appeared dashboard, click on "Use third-party hosting service." Select "Zoho Mail" in the new window and paste the copied TXT record into the input below, and click "Save."
Now, return to your Zoho tab and press the "Verify by TXT" button. After everything is done, it usually takes some time before your email forwarding starts working. Be patient.
G Suite is the business version of all the Google tools you already know and appreciate, offering professional email addresses with a familiar Gmail interface. It does not have a free plan, with pricing starting at €5.75/month per user. However, many users choose it for its seamless integration with Google Drive, Calendar, Docs, and other productivity tools.
Also, connecting Google email hosting service to Shopify is easier because it provides a meta tag in the section of the domain verification while setting up your business account.
So again, you click Online Store > Domains > the desired domain for email forwarding, press "Use third-party hosting service."
You select "G Suite" this time and paste the meta tag copied from your G Suite account. Save the settings.
Then follow G Suite instructions to finish your Shopify domain verification and give it some time to update. This method doesn't require any manual changes in DNS settings.
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On the contrary, if you use an email hosting service other than Zoho or Google Workspace, you must add the records to DNS by hand.
Go to Online Store > Domains > the chosen domain.
Then click DNS settings.
In the appeared menu, press the "Add custom record" button. Select the type of record you want to add to the dropdown list. Depending on your email host, it would most likely be either MX or TXT.
After that, you need to paste into the text inputs the required data copied from the setup instruction on your hosting website. Click Confirm.
Regardless of your email forwarding setup method, it is important to test if everything works correctly before using the new function.
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While Shopify does not offer native email hosting, now you know how to connect third-party mail hosting services and set up email forwarding for custom domains purchased through or transferred to Shopify. It lets you maintain a professional look for your business and build buyers' trust.
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