Northern Lights Vedic review for Shopify Email

Aug. 13, 2020

I love the idea of Shopify Email, but this is way too basic for our needs. I was hoping it would be similar or better than the old Mailchimp/Shopify integration, but it doesn't even come close. There are both basic and advanced features that are missing. Here are some missing features: -2 and 3 column sections -sections that allow you to add your choice of standard content blocks (buttons, text, images, products, etc.). That works so much better than relying on finding a pre-made template that has all the right content blocks. -the ability to add images! Logo and products are the only images that can be added to emails now. -use Paragraph, Header 1, Header 2, etc. for text instead of fiddling with the size continually. Very important for those of us that have blog posts we share through email. I like that you can change the text size, but it's set up in a way that doesn't work for long text blocks. -there's something weird with the "from" section in the email designer. It should be possible to add alternate emails rather than just the main store email. -it's great to be able to add products, but what about collections? It would be more useful for us to be able to add a collection and pull a certain number of those products into the email or simply a collection image and link -automated emails, ideally with the option of automated email sequences (welcome emails, thank you emails, abandoned cart emails, email sequences triggered by tags/shopping behavior/birthday/custom date field, reengagement campaigns, etc.) -custom fields. We use Mailchimp as a CRM where we have additional information about our customers like birthday, custom date fields, interests, etc. Currently there is no option for this in Shopify. -ability to send emails to people who have purchased (or not yet purchased) specific products. In general, customer group filters are not sophisticated enough. -Shopify is in a unique position to be able to pull off personalized recommended product emails based on customer behavior. That would be a amazing to see here. I could see this working for businesses that are just getting off the ground or have only a handful of products. For now, it is not useable for us. But I'm hoping that Shopify Email will grow to include some of these features. I would much rather use Shopify in the future if it's able to up its email game. Edit: Forgot to mention merge fields, discount codes and email scheduling in the list of missing features. I'm also concerned by some reviews mentioning the app hurting their sender reputation and even blacklisting domains. Those reviews may be overblown, but there doesn't seem to be an effective way of managing list cleaning, authorizing send emails, etc.