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Today I was thinking of friendly way to end a transaction on my webpage. For the purpose of this question think of it as a standard receipt/confirmation page at the end of a shopping order.

Most sites seem to have a variation of "Thank you" for their post order messages.. However, I personally don't like that terminology as it sounds overused and impersonal. These answers: Should an interface ever say "thank you"? seem to agree that gratitude is a nicety that best be avoided.

While thinking of how real life transactions normally end the phrase "Have a nice day" came up. However, I immediately found many reasons not to use that phrase:

Since it is often uttered by service employees to customers at the end of a transaction, particularly in Israel and the United States, its repetitious and dutiful usage has resulted in the phrase developing, according to some journalists and scholars, a cultural connotation of impersonality, lack of interest, passive–aggressive behavior, or sarcasm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_a_nice_day

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Book - Global UX: Design and Research in a Connected World

So my question is are there any acceptable friendly/personal sounding messages to end transactions or do they all have their pitfalls? Is a standard "Your order has been submitted", although cold, a better experience for the user?

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    "Thank You" seems to be the most common and perfectly acceptable ending to nearly every money-for-goods transaction I've had in the real world. It's not the computer saying "thank you for pushing the right buttons" but rather the company saying "thank you for giving us money in exchange for this product"
    – DA01
    Aug 17, 2015 at 20:29

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This is a content strategy questions and the answer would depend on the tone of your overall site. Some sites have spent a lot of time developing a "personality".

So within that concept, if your site overall is a straight transnational (in, out, done) site it would be good to end with a message that fits that content model. Such as your typical, "Your order has been submitted." If you have a more uplifting tone, something motivational may work better, such as, "you're on your way".

On a personal note, I'm a big fan of adding, "Success!". For a quick burst of gratification.

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    Use of "success" in automatic messages tends to annoy me. I think the process didn't seem like it was difficult, so why are you acting surprised that it worked? I suspect it sometimes gets programmed in to systems at an early stage of development when it is novel to see it working. It doesn't seem appropriate once a system is established and reliable.
    – bdsl
    Aug 17, 2015 at 21:34
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    As I said, "on a personal note." That's my preference. A system designed for an emo user may say something like, "i guess it, like, worked." Takes all different kinds to make the world go round. What is your suggestion?
    – Johnny UX
    Aug 19, 2015 at 3:41
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It really depends on your site, who your customers are, and what they expect. One can conceive of a website as a medium in which "You, the store owner" are talking to "Me, the buyer." In that scenario a more personal scenario may work very well.

In other cases (say Amazon) in which one knows there isn't a "person" on the other end it may not work as well. There are a lot of reasons personalization (done well) can be very effective. There are also pitfalls. The more you personalize, the more you make the experience fun and enjoyable for some the more you will alienate others.

MailChimp and others have gone out of their way to personalize their site. It works for some.

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