– WooCommerce: send email to customers upon failed or cancelled order
you’re running Tickera via Bridge for WooCommerce and noticed WooCommerce sends “order failed” and “order cancelled” emails only to admins — not to buyers. So when a buyer’s payment fails, they’re left with a silent broken checkout while you’re the only one who knows something went wrong. This add-on fixes that.
Why WooCommerce doesn’t do it by default
WooCommerce’s default behaviour is to alert the admin (so they can investigate) but not the customer (presumably to avoid spamming on flaky-payment retries). Reasonable for some shops, but for tickets it’s bad UX — a buyer who hit a “your payment failed” page expects a follow-up email with retry instructions. Without one, they often abandon and you lose the sale.
The add-on
- Download: woo-send-email-on-cancelled-order.zip
- WordPress admin → Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, install, activate.
- Done — no settings page. WooCommerce now sends the same email it sends to admin to the customer as well, on both failed and cancelled order events.
What buyers get
The email mirrors what admins receive — same template, same subject line, same body. You’ll want to customize WooCommerce’s email templates so the buyer-facing version is helpful (not “Admin: order failed” which is awkward when received by a customer).
WooCommerce admin → WooCommerce → Settings → Emails — find the relevant templates (“Cancelled order”, “Failed order”), click Manage, edit subject and content to be customer-friendly. Useful additions:
- Empathy: “We noticed your payment didn’t go through.”
- Reason if known: “Card declined” / “Bank refused” / “Insufficient funds.”
- Clear next action: “Click here to retry checkout” with a link to your cart page.
- Alternative payment options: “Try a different card, or use PayPal at checkout.”
- Support contact: “Email us at help@yoursite.com if you need help.”
Works regardless of product type
The add-on hooks WooCommerce’s order-status-change events, not Tickera specifically. So if your store sells tickets and other products (merch, parking, hotel add-ons), the failed/cancelled emails go to customers for all of them.
Bridge mode only — not standalone
This is a WooCommerce-specific add-on. Standalone Tickera handles checkout itself and has its own failed-payment behavior — see payment failed but ticket generated for the standalone equivalent.
Combined with abandoned-cart recovery
For maximum conversion recovery, pair this add-on with a WooCommerce abandoned-cart plugin (Cartflows, AutomateWoo, etc.) — which catches buyers who didn’t even reach payment. The two cover the full funnel:
- Abandoned-cart plugin: buyer didn’t pay → reminder email.
- This add-on: buyer tried to pay but failed → retry email.
Related
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