Send a Shopify draft order invoice in your customer’s language

Why did my Shopify draft order invoice go out in English, and how do I send it in French?

Shopify sends the invoice email in the language saved on the customer’s profile. Its draft order help doesn’t mention this, so it’s easy to miss. Set the customer’s Language in the Shopify admin on a computer, make sure that language is published in your store, then send the invoice from the draft.

1. In the Shopify admin, go to Customers and click the customer’s name. If they’re new, create them first.
2. In the Customer overview section, click Manage > Edit contact information.
3. Change Language, then save (Shopify Help).
4. Go to Orders > Drafts and open the draft. Check that it’s attached to that customer.
5. In the Payments section, click Send invoice, write your message, click Review invoice, then click Send invoice (Shopify Help).

The edit steps for the Shopify app on your phone list name, email and phone, not Language, and a Shopify POS customer profile has no language field. To edit the profile, staff need the Customers > Create and edit permission. A Shopify staff member said on the Community forum that seeing a customer’s language options also needs Manage settings, so if the field is missing, ask the store owner.

Check the profile’s Language again just before each send. If the caller has no email address, see drafting an order for a customer with no email. If the invoice never arrives at all, see customer didn’t get your Shopify invoice.

Why is my Shopify checkout still in English after I added French?

Adding a language isn’t enough; you also have to publish it. Shopify says: “After you publish a language, your checkout and email notifications are displayed in the customer’s language” (Shopify Help). An added but unpublished language stays hidden from customers.

1. In the Shopify admin, go to Settings > Languages.
2. Click Add language, choose the language, then click Next.
3. Turn on the domains you want, then click Done.
4. In the languages table, open the menu for that language and click Publish. If it has no translations yet, click Publish again to confirm.

Checkout has built-in translations for some languages. Your notification emails need their own translation, made under Settings > Notifications, then the notification, then Localize. You can add a translated invoice email for each language you’ve added; editing the draft order invoice email covers the template itself. For the translation work, Shopify has its own Translate & Adapt app.

Which language will my customer see on each kind of payment link?

An emailed Shopify invoice uses the language on the customer’s profile. Checkout shows in the language the customer is browsing your store in, otherwise your default language (Shopify’s rule for checkout). A message you write yourself is in whatever language you write it. Shopify’s POS help doesn’t say which language a POS email uses, so set the customer’s Language in the admin first to be safe.

• Invoice email: Shopify says you can “edit a customer profile to change the language of the notifications that a customer receives” (Shopify Help).
• Checkout: “displayed in the same language that a customer uses to browse your online store” (Shopify Help). Otherwise your default store language is used (Shopify Help).
• Order confirmation: Shopify sends notifications “in the language that they placed their order in”, when that notification has a translation (Shopify Help), and product, variant and shipping names follow the checkout language too. For example, a customer who checks out in French gets a French confirmation once you’ve translated it. For everything that arrives after paying, see what a customer gets after paying a Shopify payment link.

A draft order has no language setting of its own. The language comes from the customer it’s attached to, which is why the fix starts on the customer, not the draft. For a refresher on what each link creates, see Shopify payment links explained.

The language assigned to a POS location is a different thing. Shopify says it sets product language in POS and “also affects email, SMS, and printed receipts”, and only one language can be assigned to a location at a time. For an invoice, the customer’s profile Language is what counts. For every draft action at the counter, see Shopify POS draft orders.

Why is my Shopify invoice email subject in English?

In the same Community thread, a Shopify staff member said in 2023 that the draft order email subject uses the store’s default language. So the subject may stay in English even when the body is translated. The same staff member said you can delete it and type your own, so write the subject in the customer’s language before you click Send invoice.

The Send invoice dialog has a message box that you fill in yourself. Write that in the customer’s language too.

Why does my Shopify draft order link open in English, and can I change it?

Checkout shows in the language the customer is browsing your store in, otherwise your default language, so a customer who opens your link without visiting your store first can see your default. Shopify doesn’t document a language option for a draft order link. Publish the language so checkout can show in it; the confirmation follows the language the customer checks out in.

Merchants have reported adding ?locale= and a language code to the end of a copied draft link. One said it worked (Community thread); another said it sent them to the home page in a private window (Community thread). If you try it:

1. Use the code exactly as it appears in Settings > Languages (for example, fr or fr-ca).
2. Open the edited link in a private window on your phone.
3. If it lands on the home page, or in the wrong language, send the plain link.

For getting the copied link onto the customer’s phone, see how to send a Shopify payment link by text.

Make the payment link from the POS cart with Pay Link

With Pay Link, from Countermade (the Shopify POS apps from Invenire Studios), staff start from the POS cart and the customer pays on Shopify’s own secure checkout, so the languages you publish in Settings > Languages apply to its checkout. Staff never see or type card details.

Before anything is sent, staff see the total up front, with a note when checkout will add shipping (why Shopify adds shipping to an invoice). Staff can see whether the link has been paid, and a double tap makes one link, not two. Pay Link needs Shopify POS Pro.

Next step

Open the customer in the Shopify admin and set their Language before your next Send invoice.

Pay Link isn’t on the Shopify App Store yet. Get early access and we’ll email you when it’s ready to try.