If a potential customer visits a product page on your store and sees that the product they want is out of stock, it’s important to make it as easy as possible for them to still make that purchase as soon as stock levels are replenished. You can enable back-in-stock email alerts on your Shopify store so that your customers are notified and can quickly return to the product page as soon as they are able complete the purchase.
After you have completed the setup steps outlined below, we automatically apply the necessary scripts to your Shopify store. When a customer chooses to be notified when a product is back in stock, they are sent an email asking them to confirm their opt-in to back-in-stock email alerts.
Before you start
Things you need to know:
Back in stock alerts are supported for all stores connected to your account.
Back in stock alerts are not supported for the Shopify Express theme.
You must have transactional email enabled on your account.
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Configure back in stock alerts
Text fields
The configurable text fields for the back in stock button and popover support plain text only.
To add the Back in stock alert button to your product pages, and set up the email alerts:
Go to Content > Products > Product notifications.
Product notifications only appears in the menu if you have a connected store.
Select NEW NOTIFICATION.
1. Type and catalog settings
Expand the Notification type drop-down menu and select Back in stock.
Expand the Choose catalog drop-down menu and select a catalog.
Optionally, you can add product tags to the Include tags or Exclude tags fields. To do this, type the tag into the relevant box.
Select Next.
Product filtering with tags
To display the Notify me button on all products in the selected store and catalog, leave the Include tags and Exclude tags fields empty.
The below table describes how the application of tags to the Include and Exclude fields affects the display of the Notify me button on your site:
Tags applied | Result |
Include only | When products are out of stock, the Notify me button only shows on products with any of the tags specified in the Include field. The button does not show on any other products which do not have the specified tags. |
Exclude only | When products are out of stock, the Notify me button only shows on products that do not have any of the tags specified in the Exclude field. |
Include and exclude | When products are out of stock, the Notify me button only shows on products with any of the tags specified in the Include field, however, if a product also has a tag that is specified in the Exclude field, the Notify me button does not show for this product. |
2. Button and popover settings
Under the heading Button position, select whether your store uses a Standard or Custom theme using the radio buttons.
If your store uses a custom theme, you must enter a CSS selector from your product page layout that can be used to position the Notify me button on your product pages. The Notify me button appears after the page element that you specify. If you’re unsure what to enter here, your Shopify agency or developers can help you.
To configure your button style, expand the Button font drop-down menu to select a font, then enter your button text, text colour and button colour in the relevant fields. This is the button that appears on the product page for any out-of-stock product in the selected catalog.
If you'd like to add additional styling to your Back in stock module, such as font size, weight, padding, roundness, width, and height, select the Additional styling toggle. Once turned on, all additional styling options are applied to your design.
If your store offers different product variants on a product page; under Pop-overs, set the Use variant selector toggle to Yes to give your customers the option to select variants for their Back in stock notifications.
To configure the popover, select the Heading, Content or Button tab to edit the design options for these features. This is the popover that appears once a customer selects the Notify me button on the product page.
For more information, see the Popover design options table below.
Select NEXT.
To customise the Thank you message, enter your preferred text in the Title text, Body text and Button text fields, then select NEXT. The design for the Thank you popover is copied from the design choices you entered on the previous screen.
If you want to generate a custom verification email to your customers, select the Send custom verification email toggle. If set to off, the default custom verification email is sent instead.
Learn more in the section Opt-in confirmation email.
Select the radio button for Immediately or Daily to set the schedule for your back in stock notifications, then select NEXT.
Immediately: email alerts are sent to queued contacts as soon as a catalog sync updates stock levels to be greater than zero.
Daily: email alerts are sent once a day at the time you specify. To set the time, expand the hours and minutes drop-down menus and choose a time.
Email template is set to the default Back in stock notification triggered campaign, which is automatically created for you. To view the campaign, select PREVIEW.
Learn more in the section Edit the back in stock email campaign.
A summary of the settings you have configured is displayed. To confirm, select SAVE.
The scripts which power the back in stock alerts are now added to your store. To see the alert you have created, Go to Content > Products > Product notifications in Dotdigital. If you want to make any changes, select the Edit icon.
Popover design options
Tab | Options |
Heading |
|
Content |
|
Button |
|
Opt-in confirmation email
When a contact signs up for a notification, they are sent an opt-in confirmation email. This email can either be a standard system template which you can customise with your logo, or a triggered campaign which you can fully design to match your branding.
Add a logo to the system template
Expand the User menu and go to Settings > Contacts > Subscription settings.
Select Choose file to upload a logo from your computer.
Select SAVE.
Use a triggered campaign for the back in stock verification email
Before you start
There are certain content blocks and link types which are not supported in the back in stock verification email campaign. If you include any of these, your campaign won't send.
See the list of affected content in the section Unsupported features.
If you enable the Send custom verification email toggle when editing the notification’s settings, it creates a custom verification triggered email campaign.
To edit the text and design of this campaign using EasyEditor:
Go to Automation > Triggered email.
Select the Product notifications folder.
Select the Back in stock verification campaign name, or the Edit icon.
Make any changes you want to the campaign design.
Learn more in Use EasyEditor to edit your email campaign.
Select SAVE.
Product notification verify data fields
You can also personalise your email to include data fields that are specifically designed for your custom verification email.
To use these data fields in your campaign:
In EasyEditor, select a text-type box that can support data fields.
Select the DATA FIELDS tab at the top of the page.
Expand the Product notification verify drop-down menu and choose the data field you want to insert in your campaign.
Once the contact confirms using the link in the confirmation email, their email address is added to a queue for that particular product. When your catalog sync indicates that the product stock is at least one, an email notification is sent with a direct link back to the product page.
Edit the Back in stock email campaign
Before you start
There are certain content blocks and link types which are not supported in the back in stock email campaign. If you include any of these, your campaign won't send.
See the list of affected content in the section Unsupported features.
The first time you create a back in stock product notification, we automatically create a Back in stock notification triggered email campaign in your account.
When creating back-in-stock notifications for multiple stores, a new template is generated for each store. If a store has specific branding, it is applied to its template.
To edit the triggered campaign:
Go to Automation > Triggered email.
Select the Product notifications folder.
Select the Back in stock notification campaign name, or the Edit icon.
Make any changes you want to the campaign design.
Learn more in Use EasyEditor to edit your email campaign.
Select SAVE.
Product notification data fields
You can also personalise your email to include data fields that are specifically designed for your product notification email. To use these data fields in your campaign:
In EasyEditor, select a text-type box that can support data fields.
Select the DATA FIELDS tab at the top of the page.
Expand the Product notification email drop-down menu and choose the data field you want to insert in your campaign.
Reporting
You can view and export reporting for your back in stock emails for both pending and sent notifications.
Learn more in Product notification reports.