Almost all Shopify stores face stockouts. While you can manage stockouts effectively by planning your inventory ahead and analyzing your stock frequently, there’s always going to be times when you just can’t predict stockouts. This is where back in stock alerts can help.With back-in-stock alerts, you can let shoppers subscribe to be notified about a product’s availability. Let’s dive into why you need to set up this smart automation and the best practices that can help you increase conversions on your back-in-stock alerts.Also read: eCommerce Stores Using Back in Stock Alerts to Capture Their Shopper Purchase Intent and How It Helps Them Increase Sales
Product Stockouts— Negatively Impacting Your Shopify Sales
Imagine landing on a product that you’ve been looking for everywhere only to find that it’s out of stock. It’s a real downer. But, how often have you gone back to the product to check if it’s back in stock? For most shoppers online, there’s a slim chance they’ll go back for an unavailable product. They’ll just find the product somewhere else or not buy it at all. Stockouts cause a huge financial loss for Shopify stores, making it harder to acquire these sales in the future. In 2011, stockouts caused $25 billion in losses. The loss isn't just financial. The negative impacts of stockouts include not being able to acquire new customers, low satisfaction rates, and negative word-of-mouth.Your first step to avoiding stockouts is to predict how your inventory moves out of your Shopify store. Understanding the pattern of how your product gets sold can help you stock up your inventory better and avoid long gaps of stockouts. This can be done with frequent inventory monitoring, a weekly process to analyze how your inventory moves on your store, and with analytics that helps you monitor product demand.Also read: Out of Stock Management: How to Manage Stockouts on Your Shopify StoreHowever, it’s hard to control your inventory to the minute details. You’ll surely have a short period of time between when your product goes out of stock and when it is stocked up again. You need to have a system in place during this time to avoid losing your interested shoppers from making a purchase due to product unavailability. The solution? Back in Stock Alerts!
What are Back in Stock Alerts?
Back-in-stock alerts let shoppers subscribe to out of stock products via email, SMS, Facebook Messenger & web push notifications. These alerts are sent to customers where they are the most active & bring them back with notifications once a product is back.Install Back in Stock - Restock Alerts, the back in stock notification app, to set up back-in-stock alerts and recover sales lost to stockouts.
Benefits of Back in Stock Alerts on your Shopify store
Setting up back-in-stock alerts has proven to impact your Shopify store’s growth. Let’s look at how a back in stock notification app can help your Shopify store.
1. Increase Shopify sales
With these automated alerts set up, you can ensure that stockouts don’t dictate how your products sell. Instead, shoppers who were planning to shop from you still can come back later and buy the product that was stocked out earlier. This way, a restock notification app is sure to boost sales.
2. Provide a seamless experience for shoppers
When shoppers land on an unavailable product without any option of subscribing, they instantly have a negative experience, making them less likely to come back to your store again. But, with a back-in-stock alert set up through a restock notification app, shoppers can have a seamless experience, from subscribing to the stocked out item to receiving the alert via their preferred communication channel.Also read: Amazon Marketing Strategy: How Amazon Brings Back Interested Shoppers During Stockouts
3. Increase customer satisfaction
With an option to subscribe and later easily come to the product to shop with a Shopify out of stock notification, customers will leave with high satisfaction rates, making them less likely to choose your competitors over you.
4. Grow your email and subscription lists
Back-in-stock alerts give you the perfect opportunity to capture customer demand & grow your email list or even capture details about these shoppers like their Facebook account or mobile number.
5. Acquire new shoppers
With a back-in-stock alert set up, new visitors who are interested in your product can still subscribe and shop the item when its back in stock. These Shopify out of stock notifications make it easier to acquire new shoppers and you can later promote your sales and products to them.Also read: 19 Good Email Back in Stock Notifications and Why They Work
How Do Back-in-Stock Alerts Work for Shopify stores?
Step 1: Shopper lands on a stocked out product page
When browsing your Shopify store, your shopper lands on a product they are interested in. Upon clicking on the product page, the shopper finds that the item is out of stock. They then see a subscription form that lets them subscribe to be notified when the item is restocked.
Step 2: Shopper subscribes to alerts
If the shopper is interested in shopping for the item, they subscribe to receive updates about its restock using the subscription form. The shopper can choose the communication channel through which they want to receive updates.When setting it up, the merchant can customize the subscription form and choose which communication channels they want to add to it.
Step 3: Once stocked up, the shopper receives a back-in-stock alert
When the product is back in stock, the shopper automatically receives a back-in-stock alert to the communication channel of their choice. This message can be customized by the merchant to show a copy that matches their brand’s voice. The shopper then views the message and takes action.
Step 4: Successful re-engagement and purchase
Finally, the shopper reads the message and comes back to the Shopify store to successfully purchase the item. This automated process ensures that you never miss out on a purchase due to stockouts while also providing shoppers with the option of being informed about the product without having to wait and constantly check if it’s back in stock.
4 Types of Channels You Can Use to Set up Back-in-Stock Alerts
With the right back-in-stock app, you can connect and send alerts using 4 different communication channels. Having so many options allows you to cater to different shopper preferences. Certain shoppers don’t want to give personal details like phone numbers while others have preferred channels they like to get updates on. With multiple channels, you can let shoppers choose their preferences and deliver a positive experience, ensuring higher subscriptions.
1. Emails
Email is one of the most personalized and common communication channels for eCommerce businesses. Shoppers who subscribe to a store’s emails are more engaged with the store and the personalized manner of the message makes it less likely to be ignored. This is why emails are the perfect channel to let your shoppers know about in-stock updates. Personalized emails have a 39% higher average open rate than emails that aren’t personalized. By using emails to send back-in-stock alerts, you can connect with your shoppers better and send a personalized message that is sure to bring in purchases.
Also read: How to Set Up Back In Stock Alerts Using Email to Bring Back Shoppers
2. SMS
SMS is one of the oldest marketing channels and unlike other channels, it doesn’t need the internet to be sent. You can send SMS to your shopper’s mobile via their mobile carrier. With its mobile-specific platform and immediate delivery, SMS is a great platform to venture into, especially if your customer base is mostly local.SMS produces engagement rates 6-8 times higher than retailers normally achieve via email marketing. By using SMS to send back-in-stock alerts, you can reach shoppers who are offline and connect with them directly.
Also read: How to Set Up Back In Stock Alerts Using SMS to Bring Back Shoppers
3. Web Push Notifications
Web push notifications are sent to shoppers directly to their device screens, making it the perfect communication channel for timely updates about product availability. They are short messages, quick to read, and with a strong CTA to take shoppers to your website instantly.Shoppers who don’t want to disclose their personal information like phone numbers or email can easily just subscribe to web push notifications. Since shoppers subscribe through the browser, web push notifications are considered to be more secure. By setting up back-in-stock alerts using web push notifications, you can allow shoppers to subscribe to in-stock updates without having to part with personal information that they don’t want to.
Also read: How to Set Up Back In Stock Alerts Using Web Push Notifications
4. Facebook Messenger
With more people opting for shorter marketing messages, Facebook Messenger marketing has risen to popularity. 1.3 billion people use Facebook Messenger each month. With such a large active user base, Shopify stores are rushing to maximize their marketing efforts on this channel. You can use Facebook Messenger to send back-in-stock alerts to your shoppers. Send the alert to your subscriber’s chat, ensuring that it appears along with messages from other shoppers.
Also read: How to Set Up Back In Stock Alerts Using Facebook Messenger to Bring Back Shoppers
Best Practices for Back-in-Stock Alerts
1. Customize the subscription widget
Customize the subscription widget and confirmation message to make it sound like your brand. You can optimize this copy to use scarcity language like ‘This is an exclusive item. Subscribe so you don’t miss it when it’s back!’ or even just add a tone that shoppers relate to yours.
2. Use urgency in your back-in-stock message
Make your back-in-stock message short and highly relevant to the product that was just stocked. Your copy should be crisp and reflect who you are as a brand. A great tactic you can use is to add urgency phrases like “Act now”, “Limited stocks” and “Only for 24 hours”. Urgency is a great way to push your shopper to take action on their interest.
3. Add product image for better recall
Show the product that your shopper is interested in within your back-in-stock alerts. This image will help the shopper remember the product faster, inciting a quicker response to the message. Always ensure that the image is of high quality and shows the product in use.
4. Remind them about the product price
Shoppers don’t want to be blindsided by the price of a product. Be upfront with your shoppers by showing the price of the product within your message.
5. Show similar products as recommendations
Always craft your in-stock email in a manner that gives your shopper more options to browse through. Use the space below the in-stock update and the product details to show product recommendations. These recommendations can be products similar to what the shopper is interested in, bestsellers on your store, or even products they last looked at. Note: This feature is only available for back-in-stock emails.
6. Automate it!
Your in-stock updates must be sent as soon as the product is back in stock with back in stock shopify app. This timely update can help you re-engage shoppers and the use of urgency in your copy will make them rush to your store to shop the product instantly.Our app sends Shopify out of stock notification automatically. Our automation process ensures that the interested shoppers get an update about the product as soon as it’s back on your store. This ensures that you don’t have to manually let your shoppers know, saving you time and making your in-stock updates efficient.
How do I add out of stock on Shopify?
Shopify shows that your product is out of stock if the stock level on your product page is "0". You can maximize the pageviews you get on a product that is stocked out by adding a back in stock subscription widget to capture interested shoppers and later inform them when the item is back in stock.
How do I get restock notifications?
Set up restock notifications by integrating Back in Stock - Restock Alerts, your back in stock notification Shopify app , with a web push notification app, like PushOwl. Once set up, you can customize the text shown within your subscription widget.
Ready to recover lost sales from stockouts?
We hope this helps you understand why you need back-in-stock alerts and how you can set them up to bring back shoppers interested in your products. Back-in-stock alerts are crucial for every Shopify merchant. While stockouts are sometimes hard to predict, ensuring fewer losses to stockouts is controllable. When setting up back-in-stock alerts, picking the right back in stock notification app Shopify for this solution can help you provide more communication channels to interested shoppers and allow you to customize your alerts. Back in Stock - Restock Alerts enables your Shopify store with all the features you need to set up high-converting back-in-stock alerts. From advanced features, multiple communication channels, flexibility in customizations, and smart automation, the Shopify app is your one-stop solution to customized back-in-stock alerts. The best Shopify back in stock apps also integrates with your favorite apps— Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Wiser, PushOwl, Zapier, and Facebook Messenger so that you can supercharge your back-in-stock alerts and maximize conversions.
