Shopify notifications

Overview

Shopify sends its own set of transactional emails — order confirmation, shipping updates, refund notifications, and more — directly from your store. These are separate from Supercycle notifications, which cover rental-, return-, and subscription-specific events. Because Supercycle products are sold through Shopify checkout, many customer-facing communications (and your own staff notifications) are still triggered by Shopify. To make these emails work well for rental, membership, and subscription orders, you can extend Shopify’s notification templates with small Liquid snippets that read Supercycle data from the order and line items. Common reasons to customize these templates:

Show rental start and end dates in order confirmations and staff notifications.
Display different messaging for subscription orders versus one-off purchases.
Tell customers about a charge (for example, a late fee or damage charge) created in Supercycle.
Link customers to their account portal so they can manage a subscription.

Walkthrough

You don’t need to be a developer to add these snippets — most templates only need a small edit in Shopify’s notification editor.

Open Notifications in Shopify

From your Shopify admin, go to Settings then Notifications.

Choose a notification template

Find the notification template you want to edit (for example, Order confirmation, New order, or Order edited) and click to open it.

Add the snippet

Copy the snippet you need from the sections below and paste it into the relevant part of the subject line or email body.

Preview and save

Use Shopify’s Preview to check how the email renders, then Save.

Send a test

From the same screen, send a test email to yourself to confirm the content looks right with real order data.

Order tags are applied to an order after it is created, which means they are not available when the email template is rendered. Don’t use tags to branch notification emails — use line item properties instead.

Snippets

Order has a subscription

Use to display different content if a line item has a subscription. This matches any order with a subscription — including recurring ones — so keep the message neutral, or combine it with the recurring check below. It can be used to show a link to your customer accounts, where the customer can manage their subscription.

{% assign has_subscription = false %}
{% for line_item in line_items %}
  {% if line_item.selling_plan_allocation %}
    {% assign has_subscription = true %}
    {% break %}
  {% endif %}
{% endfor %}

{% if has_subscription %}
  <p>This order contains a subscription. <a href="{{ shop.url }}/account">Manage your subscription</a></p>
{% else %}
  <p>Thank you for your order</p>
{% endif %}

Order vs recurring subscription Order

Use to display different content if it’s a recurring order. Recurring orders created by Supercycle include a rental_id line item property — the original checkout order doesn’t.

Email body

{% assign is_recurring = false %}
{% for line_item in line_items %}
  {% for prop in line_item.properties %}
    {% if prop.first == 'rental_id' %}
      {% assign is_recurring = true %}
    {% endif %}
  {% endfor %}
{% endfor %}

{% if is_recurring %}
  <p>Thank you for your subscription order</p>
{% else %}
  <p>Thank you for your order</p>
{% endif %}

To change the email subject too, paste this whole snippet — including the detection loop — into the Email subject field. It’s the same check, written with {%- whitespace control so the subject renders as a single line:

Email subject

{%- assign is_recurring = false -%}
{%- for line_item in line_items -%}
  {%- for prop in line_item.properties -%}
    {%- if prop.first == 'rental_id' -%}{%- assign is_recurring = true -%}{%- endif -%}
  {%- endfor -%}
{%- endfor -%}
{%- if is_recurring -%}
  Thanks for your subscription order, {{ customer.first_name }}
{%- else -%}
  Thanks for your order, {{ customer.first_name }}
{%- endif -%}

Don’t use order.source_name == 'subscription_contract' to detect recurring orders. Shopify changed source_name values without notice, and initial checkout orders can now match this condition too.

Show start and end dates

Use to show the start and end dates of the line items. This example code works best when all the products have fixed dates enabled.

{% assign start_date = '' %}
{% assign end_date = '' %}

{% for line_item in order.line_items %}
  {% for prop in line_item.properties %}
    {% if prop.first == 'Start date' %}
      {% assign start_date = prop.last %}
    {% elsif prop.first == 'End date' %}
      {% assign end_date = prop.last %}
    {% endif %}
  {% endfor %}
{% endfor %}

{% if start_date != '' %}
  <p><strong>Start date:</strong> {{ start_date }}</p>
{% endif %}
{% if end_date != '' %}
  <p><strong>End date:</strong> {{ end_date }}</p>
{% endif %}

You can incorporate this into Shopify’s default notifications to display the dates in the product list if your template isn’t outputting the line item properties.

Adding rental dates to staff notifications

To display rental start and end dates in staff notifications (like “New order” notifications), add this code within the line item loop in your notification template:

{%- assign rental_start_date = '' -%}
{%- assign rental_end_date = '' -%}
{%- for prop in line.properties -%}
  {%- if prop.first == 'Start date' -%}
    {%- assign rental_start_date = prop.last -%}
  {%- elsif prop.first == 'End date' -%}
    {%- assign rental_end_date = prop.last -%}
  {%- endif -%}
{%- endfor -%}
{%- if rental_start_date != '' or rental_end_date != '' -%}
  <p class="order-list__item-variant" style="margin-top: 4px;">
    <strong>Rental details</strong><br>
    {%- if rental_start_date != '' -%}
      Start date: {{ rental_start_date }}<br>
    {%- endif -%}
    {%- if rental_end_date != '' -%}
      End date: {{ rental_end_date }}
    {%- endif -%}
  </p>
{%- endif -%}

This code should be placed inside the line item loop (where line represents each line item) to display rental dates for each product in the order.

Check if the order has a charge

Use to show different content if the order notification is a normal order or for a charge created in Supercycle.

{% assign has_charge = false %}
{% assign charge_reason = '' %}

{% for line_item in order.line_items %}
  {% for prop in line_item.properties %}
    {% if prop.first == 'Charge' %}
      {% assign has_charge = true %}
      {% assign charge_reason = prop.last %}
    {% endif %}
  {% endfor %}
{% endfor %}

{% if has_charge %}
  <p>You have been charged: {{ charge_reason }} </p>
{% else %}
  <p>Thank you for your order</p>
{% endif %}

Overview

Setup

Methods

Manage

Sales channels

Configuration

Shopify notifications

Overview

Walkthrough

Snippets

Order has a subscription

Order vs recurring subscription Order

Show start and end dates

Adding rental dates to staff notifications

Check if the order has a charge

​Overview

​Walkthrough

​Snippets

​Order has a subscription

​Order vs recurring subscription Order

​Show start and end dates

​Adding rental dates to staff notifications

​Check if the order has a charge

Overview

Walkthrough

Snippets

Order has a subscription

Order vs recurring subscription Order

Show start and end dates

Adding rental dates to staff notifications

Check if the order has a charge