Amazon is an eCommerce giant, known for its stellar sales strategy. From personalized recommendations to increase AOV to wishlisting that allows shoppers to find their favorites, the Amazon marketing strategy assures customer engagement. So, it only makes sense to refer to Amazon’s strategy to understand how they deal with stockouts.Let’s dive into how Amazon effectively sets up back-in-stock alerts for stockouts and how you can follow their lead.
Amazon Marketing Strategy: How Amazon Uses Back in Stock Alerts
Amazon has a massive inventory. From variants in size and color to thousands of sellers offering similar products, Amazon shoppers have an (almost) unlimited number of choices when they shop. This is why a back in stock automation is crucial within Amazon marketing strategy.Shoppers on Amazon can easily see that a product is stocked out since the website replaces the “Add to Cart” button with a “Currently Unavailable” text.Shoppers can instead click on the ‘Email Me’ button within the subscription widget if they want to be informed when the item is available.
Since they are usually already registered, Amazon instantly adds them to the alert list and the shopper doesn’t have to enter any information about themselves for this.They are then shown a confirmation message within the widget they subscribed through. From here, they can manage all their alerts for stocked out items.
Amazon marketing strategy allows their shoppers to instantly subscribe, no complicated process involved. Here’s how Amazon has set up back in stock alerts:
- Communication channels used: Amazon allows shoppers to subscribe via email. Since shoppers are already registered, this is a one-click process.
- Subscription design and message: For products that aren’t in stock, a red message ‘Currently Unavailable’ is shown instead of the buttons. There is a widget shown on the left side of the page named ‘Sign up for alert’ that lets shoppers automatically subscribe to be notified. For these products, shoppers see a 'Get in-stock alert’ button instead of an 'Add to Cart' button.
- Interaction with the subscription: Once clicked, shoppers are automatically subscribed. Shoppers don’t need to enter any details. They see a confirmation message in green colored text.
How to Set Up Back in Stock Alerts Better Than Amazon
Setting up back in stock alerts like Amazon is easy. To start, install Back in Stock – Restock Alerts app on your Shopify store. The app allows you to automate back in stock processes. You can place subscription widgets on stocked out items and customize your back in stock message to fit your brand. This way, you can easily capture interested shoppers and ensure they receive in-stock messages when your product is restocked.Once set up, you can follow these 5 best practices to set up back-in-stock alerts and convert interested shoppers into customers, better than Amazon.
1. Don’t just allow shoppers to subscribe via email— give them more options!
Amazon allows its merchants to subscribe using their email. This works well because most shoppers are already logged into their account and don’t even need to provide their details to be subscribed to back-in-stock alerts.However, for your Shopify store, you need to give shoppers more channels to subscribe to. Many shoppers may not be comfortable sharing their email addresses while others may find it more convenient to subscribe through an instant channel like SMS. You can add up to 4 channels that your shoppers can choose to subscribe through— email, SMS, web push, and Facebook Messenger. With so many options, your shoppers can pick their preferred channel via which they want to subscribe to these restock messages. This way, you won’t lose shoppers who don’t want to provide private details.
You can easily set up multiple communication channels for your back-in-stock alerts. Install Back in Stock – Restock Alerts app to capture shoppers who are interested in your stocked out products.
2. Find the right app to automate back-in-stock messages
It is time-consuming to manually send a back-in-stock message to your shoppers every time you restock. This is why you need to automate these alerts. This way, you can alert shoppers instantly, without any manual intervention needed.The Back in Stock – Restock Alerts app is built to send automated restock alerts. Merchants can set up these messages with parameters and different templates. Once restocked, the automated engine triggers the communication message so that shoppers who subscribed to that specific product get instant alerts.Install Back in Stock – Restock Alerts app on your Shopify store to automate in-stock messages and increase sales.
3. Make your copy stand out using urgency
Urgency is a great way to make shoppers who have subscribed to a specific product rush to buy it.Promotional emails conveying a sense of urgency had at least 14% higher click-to-open rates, 59% higher transaction-to-click rates, and twice as high transaction rates compared to their average marketing emails.You can easily drive your shoppers to take quicker action with these urgency phrases:
- Act now!
- Get them while stocks last.
- Product availability is subject to demand.
- Limited stock, get it now!
Increase Shopify sales by installing Back in Stock – Restock Alerts app on your Shopify store.
4. Convert more subscribed shoppers with a well-crafted back-in-stock message
By optimizing your back-in-stock messages and making your copy sound like your brand, you have a higher chance of converting your shoppers. Here are some best practices you can follow when writing copy for your back-in-stock message:
- Add the product name, product image, and even price within your message to remind shoppers about the item they subscribed to.
- Display recommendations for other, similar products within the back-in-stock email. You can do this with the integration between Back in Stock and Wiser.
- Make it sound like your brand, whether this is exciting or nurturing.
Install Back in Stock – Restock Alerts app on your Shopify store to increase sales just like Amazon.
5. Optimize for mobile— just like Amazon marketing strategy
A majority of your shoppers would be visiting your Shopify store on mobile. So, it’s important to optimize your subscription form for mobile devices. The Back in Stock - Restock Alerts app is designed to ensure that your sign-up form is optimized on both desktop and mobile.Learn everything about back in stock alerts with this extensive guide.
Amazon Marketing Strategy: Set Up Back in Stock Alerts to Increase Shopify Sales
As an online store, you need to be able to convert your shoppers just like how Amazon does. pick up tips from top eCommerce stores like Amazon, Tesla, and Walmart. Through this guide, we hope you learnt how Amazon simplifies the process of subscribing to stocked out items and how you can set up your back in stock alerts like Amazon (or even better than the eCommerce giant). There’s no doubt that stockouts are common, even for stores with a large inventory management team. But, with the right strategy in place, lowering stockouts is easy. The Back in Stock - Restock Alerts app allows you to set up back-in-stock alerts on your Shopify store:
- Customizable sign-up form.
- Multiple communication channels for shoppers to choose from.
- Integrations with top Shopify apps to supercharge your alerts.
- Customizable back-in-stock messages.
- Powerful analytics to understand the impact of your alerts.
