$22 billion! That’s how much eCommerce brands lose due to out-of-stocks. And this figure is going to double in the coming years if retailers do not catch this bull by its horns.Customers come to your Shopify store with the intent to purchase. Imagine, hundreds and thousands of customers come to a product page, find it out of stock, and simply turn away because that product isn’t available.But wait! You could be restocking that product at some point sooner or later. However, the customer is not going to ask you this. It’s your job to let them know. If they have this information, they might want to come back and buy the product from you.This is where having a Shopify back-in-stock app helps. Let’s go through how you can benefit from the app.
Benefits of having a Shopify back in stock app
1. You can capture the purchase intent of shoppers
‘Oops, this product is out of stock’ vs. ‘Notify me when the product is back’ - of these, the second option has more potential to lead to an action. Agree?While the first option can make shoppers leave your store in disappointment, the second one can help you capture the purchase intent of shoppers.Here’s the sequence of events:
- The customer visits your website seeking a product/service
- If the product is not in stock, you have to let them know it’s going to be restocked
- As a marketer, you need to focus on intent
- Give them an option to subscribe to be notified
- Leave the customer feeling their need was satisfied
- You will know the customers interested in buying the product when they leave their contact details to be notified
- You can capitalize on the time that customers spend on your website. Show them pop-ups that ask for their contact details
By capturing purchase intent, you can improve personalization and share communication that leads shoppers to buy the product when restocked. It’s a simple tactic that helps retain customer interest and can lead to a sale.
2. You get to build a better email list
61% of consumers prefer to be contacted through email. Even with other channels around, email has remained number one. It's the first thing most people check every day.
But building a good email list is tricky.Here’s why. Most customers prefer to subscribe for newsletters and promotional emails in the hope to receive discounts and deals only. And obviously, they subscribe to many brands, not just yours. As a result, they might miss out on your emails or lose interest eventually. They may not even open or read your emails after a point.However, this is usually not the case when you build your email list through back-in-stock subscriptions. Because only genuinely interested customers end up subscribing for restock alerts. These are customers who want to know more about your product, when it’s going to be restocked, and when they can purchase it. So you end up building an email list of highly interested and likely-to-convert customers.
3. You establish a channel of communication
By letting customers subscribe to restock alerts, you’re creating many opportunities to interact with them. Even if a particular product is not going to be restocked soon, you can use the various communication channels to engage with and keep customers interested in your brand.Here’s what some brands do:
- A welcome email can go a long way
- Video product demonstrations can help you share useful information
- Share user generated content to improve social proof and sales
- Facts and stories about your brand
- Send discounts and deals to the subscribers
Get creative with your email communications. Sending these emails can help you build a lasting relationship with customers. It even helps you remain at the top of the customer’s mind, in case your customer forgot about your brand or product.You can build multiple channels of communication with the help of back in stock app. It lets shoppers subscribe via channels they prefer to use - email, SMS, Facebook Messenger and web push notification.
4. You can automate your restock alerts
Collecting email addresses for restock alerts is just the first step. When the product gets restocked, you will have to send notifications to the customers who subscribed.Now, imagine if you have 200 subscribers. It would be difficult to manually send alerts to all of them. You might miss out on some people. Besides, it’s time consuming and tedious.That’s where the power of automation can help. Automate restock alerts through a back in stock app.Some cues that you might find helpful:
- Automate restock alerts for products as well as for collections
- Integrate back-in-stock apps with existing multichannel marketing campaigns
- Give customers options to choose how they want to be reached - SMS, email, Messenger, etc.
A web push notification to encourage customers to subscribe:
An email restock alert sent to a subscriber:
5. You can easily manage restocks across multiple locations
Restock alerts are effective, but there’s a catch. If you send out a wrong restock alert, you might end up upsetting customers and lose them forever.Eg., say you have stores or warehouses in multiple locations - A, B and C. There’s a restock of a product only at location C. But many customers from other locations had subscribed to restock alerts. In this case, if you send a restock alert to subscribers from all locations, it’s definitely a case of misinformation. Customers in location A and B may still not be able to place an order. What a shame! Imagine how disappointed they’d feel when they go to your website and still can’t order that product.How do you manage this situation?With the Shopify Back in Stock - Restock Alert app. The app lets you automate alerts based on locations. You can imagine, doing this manually is close to impossible and chaotic. But with the app, you can manage this perfectly, and some more:
- It gives you full control over which locations are connected to the app
- Helps you improve inventory management and hence, provide better customer experience
- Helps you perform other actions such as send product recommendations, send restock alerts for various combinations such as size, color, style, etc
6. You can manage your inventory of restocked products better
Here’s another likely scenario that you must pay attention to. Let’s say you have 1000 subscribers for a particular product. The product is restocked with 900 pieces. Now if you send a restock alert to all 1000 subscribers, 100 of them might miss out the product again. Sigh!You don’t want to disappoint any of your customers. A good solution to this would be to send restock alerts in batches. Send the alerts to only 900 subscribers. But to be able to plan this action, you’ll have to be on top of your inventory.But you don’t have to be caught up all day in this inventory crisis. A back-in-stock app can help. The app is smart enough to notifies about the available inventory tally at all times and sends notifications in batches.
7. You can bring back lost sales
When customers encounter an out-of-stock product, about 21% to 43% of them go to another store to buy the item. Some of these customers might leave a negative review, rant, and might never come back to your store.But there’s a silver lining to out-of-stock situations. You can turn this negative situation into a positive experience in a second. By sending the right message at the right time, you can keep potential customers engaged. The magic wand is the back-in-stock app.Back in stock apps help you reach out potential and interested customers who have a buying intent and improve sales.
Do you need an out-of-stock strategy for your Shopify store?
Out-of-stock is the most predictable situation to happen. It’s not like you didn’t know that the product will get sold out at some point. The good news is you have restock apps to help you manage them. It’s important to capture intent and build a customer list who are likely to purchase your product through a back-in-stock app. More so, because it’s cost-effective. Because acquiring customers through social media and search engines can cost you an arm and a leg.
Ready to bring back sales lost to out-of-stock products?
