Aspenware Commerce offers email integration for a variety of customer-support actions. These emails are auto-generated from your store and include:
Order confirmations
Password reset emails
Account recovery “Find Me by Email verification code” emails
Abandoned cart reminders
Failed payment plan charge notifications
Failed subscription plan charge notifications
In order to utilize these customer-support email features, the resort must select an email provider and engage in a contract with that provider.
Provider Comparison
Aspenware supports integration with both Sendgrid and Inntopia and the following table offers a comparison of the two, from the perspective of the Aspenware integration. Please note that this chart is current as of 12/16/2020.
SendGrid | Inntopia | |
|---|---|---|
Features |
|
|
Cost (per month) | Essentials Plan: $14.95 Pro Plan: $89.95 The Pro Plan is recommended as the Essential Plan’s non-dedicated IP can result in blocked emails. (Prices as of 12/2020) | Must inquire with Inntopia sales team |
Onboarding | Less than 1 week | Dependent on Inntopia’s timeline. Historically, the timeline has been ~1 month |
Summary | The platform is reliable, easy to setup, and the majority of resorts Aspenware supports use SendGrid. Advanced reporting is available. Additional configuration steps are required to maximize delivery and no CRM is built in and emails can go to spam more often without a reputation with that IP. | The platform is reliable and can also be utilized for CRM, if desired. Inntopia offers a single view of email and is the same platform for marketing. With this integration, an admin can see all messages sent in nopCommerce. Inntopia requires a longer onboarding timeline and there have been a few occurences on high volume days in which emails were delayed as IMC worked through the email queue. |
Chart updated as of 12/16/20, *SendGrid ProPlan feature
Using Mailinator for Testing
When creating test users and doing testing, it's important to send emails to real email addresses to ensure that the emails are delivered successfully. However, if you need to create a bunch of test accounts, you can use mailinator.com, a service that generates an email address instantly. You can use addresses like goblue@mailinator.com or michaeljord@mailinator.com, which will instantly populate on the site.
Using Mailinator can save time and resources by allowing you to create and test multiple accounts without using real email addresses. However, it's important to note that the emails sent to Mailinator addresses may not always be reliable, and should not be used for testing purposes beyond initial account creation and simple tests.