What is email marketing?
An email newsletter is a marketing channel that sends new product news and campaigns to your customers on a regular basis. It costs far less to run than print or advertising, and Shopify's research puts the average ROI of email marketing at 36× — $36 in revenue for every $1 invested. A Shopify email app makes it easy to add product links and buy buttons, and choosing a template gets you an on-brand design in minutes. AI-driven automation and personalisation are increasingly part of the picture, letting you send each customer what suits them and lifting open rates and engagement.
Related pages
How to send email newsletters from Shopify
Email: the most effective low-cost way to grow revenue
Email is inexpensive to run and highly effective. According to Shopify's 2025 email marketing statistics report, average ROI reaches 36×, or $36 in revenue for every $1 invested.
Ecommerce stores use it for everything from announcing new products and campaigns to driving repeat purchases and retention. Because you own the list, reach is stable — no algorithm stands between you and your customers the way it does on social. It is cost-effective and a genuinely powerful way to deepen the relationship.
Getting results from email on Shopify without spending all your time on it
Shopify's report finds that the main goals of email marketing are product awareness and promotion, each named as the top priority by around 16% of marketers. Retention and newsletters follow at around 14.6%, so relationship-building matters too.
At the same time, many marketers say it takes them more than two weeks to produce an email, which makes efficiency the real problem. A Shopify email app lets you drop in product links and buy buttons and produce an on-brand design quickly. It is an essential tool for getting results without the overhead.
Raising open rates with AI and personalisation
Shopify's research puts average email engagement in retail at 33.1%, with around 21% of messages opened within an hour of sending. Email is a fast-acting promotional channel.
The keys to making it work are AI and personalisation. Around 80% of marketers report better results from dynamically personalising subject lines and body copy. A further 56% have optimised for mobile, 34% write email copy with generative AI, and 35% are considering expanding automated sending. This use of AI is what makes email marketing both efficient and high-performing.
The benefits of adding an email app to your Shopify store
An email app makes your sending both efficient and effective. Shopify's own tool, Shopify Email, handles composition and basic segmentation, but advanced targeting on personal data such as purchase history and birthdays calls for a third-party app alongside it.
Research finds that around 90% of marketers say segmented sending improved their results, and that behaviour-triggered emails generate roughly ten times the revenue of other sends.
The key to growing revenue is optimising what you send according to each customer's purchase history and saved products, rather than broadcasting to everyone. Combining that with a LINE-integrated tool such as StoreCRM raises open and response rates further still.
The impact of email marketing
A bar chart comparing each figure on the same scale
Improvement from segmented sending
90%
Improvement from personalised subject lines
77%
Used for promotion
55%
Used for retention and repeat purchases
44%
Open rate in retail
33%
Opened within an hour
22%
Source: Shopify, "Email Marketing Statistics 2025"
Reaching only the people you mean to: segmentation with Shopify and a third-party email app
A third-party app connects to your Shopify store data and gives you much finer segmentation. Instead of broadcasting, you generate recipient lists automatically from sales data, customer tags, membership status, first purchase date and birthday. You might target "customers who have not bought in the last 30 days", "customers who saved something but never bought", or "customers whose birthday falls within a month" — the conditions are yours to set. Open rates, click rates and revenue are analysed in real time, so reviewing and improving a campaign after it lands is straightforward. StoreCRM goes further still, sending across channels — email alongside LINE — for better results again.
Automation for efficiency: the email techniques large stores cannot do without
Email is not just a promotional tool; it is an important way to build trust with customers. Shopify connects behavioural data — purchase history, saved products, abandoned carts — so that once you set the conditions, customers are segmented automatically and emailed at the right moment. Post-purchase follow-up, back-in-stock notifications and birthday coupons sent automatically make customers feel remembered, which lifts satisfaction and repeat rates. This kind of automation handles exactly what manual work cannot keep up with as a store grows, and it sits at the centre of any CRM programme aimed at long-term customer relationships.
Seven Shopify email marketing apps
Shopify email apps install easily from the App Store and are configured without code, which makes them very approachable. Whether the admin and support are available in Japanese matters a great deal to running one smoothly. So does whether the app can send automatically in response to customer behaviour — a saved product, an abandoned cart.
StoreCRM, for instance, is available in Japanese and easy for beginners, with strengths in LINE integration and triggered sends such as back-in-stock alerts. Shopify Email, as Shopify's own app, is easy to adopt and suits straightforward sending.
Key: ◎ = strong / ◯ = supported / △ = limited or needs another app / × = not supported
| App | Beginners | Japanese admin / support | Segmented sending | Abandoned cart | Birthday | Back in stock | Wishlist | LINE | AI | Strengths | Key features |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| StoreCRM | ◎ (easy setup) | ◎ (fully Japanese) | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◯ | Built for the Japanese market; LINE and CRM campaigns in one place | Wishlists, back-in-stock and price-drop alerts, LINE and email campaigns, coupons, birthdays and anniversaries, segmented sending, rich menus, abandoned cart recovery |
| Shopify Email | ◎ (Shopify's own) | ◎ (Japanese available) | × | △ (manual setup) | △ | × | × | × | × | Official, simple, beginner-friendly | Newsletters, coupon sends, basic automated email, reporting |
| Klaviyo | △ (English UI, some difficulty) | × (no Japanese) | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | △ | △ | ◎ | For mid to large stores; advanced automation and analytics | Email and SMS, abandoned cart, birthdays, automated workflows, segmented sending, detailed analytics |
| Omnisend | ◯ (intuitive UI) | × (no Japanese) | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | △ | × | ◎ | Email and SMS in one tool; a large library of automations | Email and SMS, abandoned cart, birthdays, A/B testing, segmented sending, popup building |
| Mailchimp | ◯ (extensive templates) | × (no Japanese) | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | △ | △ | × | ◎ | A long global track record; strong on AI and CRM integration | Email and social ads, abandoned cart, customer management, templates, segmented sending, analytics |
| Privy | ◯ (intuitive) | × (no Japanese) | ◯ | ◎ | ◯ | △ | △ | × | × | Specialises in popups and forms | Email, abandoned cart, popups, signup forms, coupons, segmented sending |
| Sendvio | ◯ (relatively easy to use) | ◎ (fully Japanese) | ◎ | ◎ | ◎ | ◯ | × | × | ◯ | Good value with Japanese support, for mid-sized stores | Email and SMS, abandoned cart, birthdays, automated flows, coupons, segmented sending |
StoreCRM
The serious CRM app for Shopify stores in Japan, managing LINE and email in one place
StoreCRM is a Japanese-built CRM and marketing automation app for Shopify that works for stores from small to large. The admin, the support and the documentation are all fully localised into Japanese, so there is none of the language friction that comes with tools built abroad.
Using Shopify's customer data and purchase history, it supports flexible segmentation combining conditions such as purchase frequency, spend, saved products and tags. It also detects behavioural triggers — back-in-stock, abandoned cart, birthdays, anniversaries, price drops — automatically and sends at the right moment. You can also send newsletters to a segment at the moment that suits it best. Choose the segment for your goal and audience, pick a template, and anyone can create and send an on-brand email.
Its defining feature is sending LINE and email together. Reaching customers across channels means your messages actually land, which feeds directly into lifetime value. The UI is intuitive enough that you can run sophisticated campaigns with no specialist knowledge. Optimised for the Japanese market and for Shopify, StoreCRM is the CRM app to recommend to any Shopify store that wants results.
Shopify Email
Shopify's own free email tool, available in Japanese and easy to adopt
Shopify Email is Shopify's official free email marketing feature, and it lets you compose and send newsletters directly from your store admin. The admin and templates are fully localised into Japanese, so there is no language barrier and beginners can use it intuitively.
Templates pick up your store logo and colour palette automatically, so producing an on-brand email is simple. Drag and drop lets you insert product images, links and coupons, and you can produce a polished email with no specialist knowledge. It supports simple segmentation on customer tags and purchase history, and automated sends based on behaviour, such as messaging customers who left something in their cart or following up after a first purchase.
You can also send up to 10,000 messages a month free, so the additional cost is close to nothing. It is not built for advanced analysis or complex automations, but as a low-cost email marketing tool available in Japanese it is the natural choice for anyone new to running a Shopify store.
Klaviyo
The high-end automation app chosen by ecommerce businesses worldwide
Klaviyo is an AI-equipped email and SMS marketing app with a deep Shopify integration. It syncs customer data, purchase history and browsing history in real time, and the AI uses that behavioural data to segment automatically, personalise, and suggest the best moment to send. The result is communication optimised for each individual, which feeds directly into repeat rates and lifetime value.
It also integrates with more than 350 external apps. Templates and a drag-and-drop editor let you produce attractive emails quickly. A/B testing, ROI analysis and workflow automation support continuous improvement and data-led marketing.
Pricing is usage-based, according to list size and volume sent. The admin and support are English-only, but it is an excellent fit for mid to large Shopify stores selling globally. Where Omnisend suits stores that want automation at low cost, Klaviyo is the step up for anyone who needs precise AI-driven analysis and advanced automation.
Omnisend
Marketing automation from abroad, built around value for money
Omnisend is a marketing automation app that connects to Shopify and manages email, SMS, popups and landing pages in one place. It offers more than 100 templates and a drag-and-drop editor, with AI generating subject lines and body copy. Automations for abandoned carts, welcome emails and back-in-stock alerts take a few clicks to set up.
Spin-to-win wheels, exit-intent popups and form building strengthen lead capture, and newsletters, SMS campaigns and push notifications all live in the same place. The UI is in English but intuitive, which makes it ideal for Shopify stores that want serious automation at low cost.
Pricing is usage-based, according to list size and volume sent. The Standard plan, covering up to 500 contacts and 6,000 emails a month, starts at around USD 16 a month with the introductory discount, while the Pro plan, with unlimited email from 2,500 contacts upwards, starts at around USD 59.
Where Klaviyo specialises in AI analysis and Sendvio offers a Japanese-language all-rounder, Omnisend stands out for how quickly you can adopt it and get automations running — a high-end automation tool that prioritises value.
Mailchimp
The best choice for sending globally
Mailchimp is an email app for Shopify with an English-only admin and English-only support, which makes it particularly suitable for Shopify stores targeting customers abroad or multilingual markets. Email is at its centre, but it also covers SMS, popups, forms and landing pages.
Connected to Shopify, it syncs customer records and purchase history automatically and supports detailed segmentation on purchase frequency, spend, region and tags. It also supports behaviour-triggered sending for abandoned carts, birthdays, restocks and post-purchase follow-up, so messages arrive at the right moment.
Templates and a drag-and-drop editor make attractive emails easy to produce, and A/B testing and detailed reporting let you improve them. Pricing is usage-based on volume sent and list size, with the main features available even on the free plan.
Mailchimp is offered both as a Shopify app and as standalone software. The Shopify app connects to your customer data and purchase history for marketing integrated with your store. The standalone version, a separate web platform, also handles non-Shopify stores and unified operation across several storefronts. Where Klaviyo is strong on analysis and Omnisend on cost efficiency, Mailchimp stands out for global reach and flexibility in how you run it.
Privy
An all-in-one tool combining popups, email and SMS
Privy is a marketing automation app that connects to Shopify and manages popups, email and SMS in one place. The admin and support are English-only, but a simple, intuitive UI and a large library of design templates mean you can adopt it immediately. Popups and coupons appear automatically during a visit to prevent drop-off and to drive signups and purchases. It also supports behaviour-triggered sending for abandoned carts, post-purchase follow-up and birthdays, so messages match what the customer is doing.
Combining email, SMS and popups gives you a layered approach, automating everything from acquisition to repeat purchases. Real-time analytics and A/B testing let you keep improving as results come in. Pricing is usage-based on list size and volume sent, and the free plan covers the main features, so stores that want effective marketing on a small budget are well served. It is regarded as an all-in-one Shopify marketing tool more focused on promotion than Mailchimp.
Sendvio
Email, SMS and reviews together, with Japanese-language support
Sendvio is a marketing automation app built for Shopify with Japanese-language support. It manages email, SMS, popups and reviews together, connecting to Shopify's customer records and purchase history to automate behaviour-triggered sending for abandoned carts, post-purchase follow-up, birthdays and restocks. An intuitive admin and a large template library mean you can produce attractive emails with no specialist knowledge.
It also supports the whole path from acquisition to repeat business: popups and coupons to prevent drop-off, and review display to build trust. A/B testing and performance reporting are included as standard, so you can keep improving on the basis of results. Pricing is usage-based on volume sent and list size, with the main features available on the free plan.
Compared with the other apps here — Klaviyo oriented towards advanced analysis, Privy towards promotion — Sendvio is the balanced option, combining Japanese-language support, breadth of features and low cost. It suits any store that wants to automate its marketing easily, from a Shopify beginner to a serious operation.
Summary
When you start sending email, the first thing that matters is choosing a tool that matches your goal and the size of your store. If the basics are enough, Shopify's own Shopify Email gets you free email marketing in Japanese with very little effort. If you want more advanced automation, design or customer analysis, a Japanese-built CRM app such as StoreCRM or an app from abroad such as Klaviyo or Omnisend is the better choice. Where you sell matters too: choose an app from abroad if you are going global, and a Japanese one if your focus is the domestic market. Email apps offer a wide range of capabilities — segmentation, triggered sending, social integration, reviews, popups and templates — and choosing the one that matches your goal is what determines the result.
