Overview
Order to Email connects a store forwarding address to BigCommerce and turns incoming purchase-order emails into store orders automatically. It’s built for B2B merchants whose customers still order by email—AI reads the message (body and attachments), extracts SKUs, quantities, and shipping details, and creates a Pending BigCommerce order so your team doesn’t re-key POs by hand.
AI-powered order reading
Unlike brittle keyword or “parser rule” setups that break when a buyer changes format, Order to Email uses AI to understand each message the way a person would.
What the AI reads
- Email body — plain-text or HTML order lists typed into the message
- PDF attachments — formal POs and order forms (including multi-page documents)
- Scanned or image-heavy PDFs — OCR / vision so photographed or scanned sheets are usable
- Other attached order content (CSV, Excel Spredsheets) — when the attachment carries line items and addresses
What the AI extracts
- Line items (SKU / product codes, quantities)
- Shipping (and related) address details
- Purchase order / PO numbers when present (subject, body, or attachment)
- Confidence-oriented parsing so staff can review before fulfilment
Key benefits
Less manual entry:
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incoming PO emails become Pending BigCommerce orders without copy-paste or data entry—the AI does the reading and structuring. |
Fits existing buyer habits: |
customers keep emailing orders (including PDF POs and varied layouts); staff can forward them to the store address, or buyers can send orders there directly. No portal rollout required.
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Any format, one pipeline: |
body text, PDFs, and scanned/image POs go through the same AI extraction path instead of one-off rules per sender.
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How it works
Enable email forwarding on Inbox Reader to get your store address, turn on email processing, and optionally set filters and failure alerts. When a message arrives at that address, AI extracts line items and addresses, matches the sender to a BigCommerce customer, and creates a Pending order when SKUs and details are valid.
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