You’ve fine tuned your holiday promotions, created curated gift guides, and put money in ads getting shoppers to your store. Then someone clicks through to a category page and finds a whole lot of products they can’t actually buy. That’s probably not the holiday shopping experience you had in mind.
Out-of-stock products are part of running an online store. Bestsellers may sell faster than expected, deliveries arrive late, and sometimes your supplier’s idea of “on the way” is a lot different from yours. You can’t prevent every stockout, but you can do something about what happens next.
Before the holiday rush, give your store a plan for two things: keeping available products in front of shoppers and bringing interested customers back when sold-out items return. Together, those strategies can help keep a temporary inventory problem from becoming a bigger sales problem.
The Problem Goes Beyond Out of Stocks
The most obvious cost of a out-of-stock item is the order you lost. A shopper wants a product, you don’t have it, and your competitor gets the sale. During the holidays, when customers are working around gift-giving dates and shipping deadlines, asking them to “come back later” doesn’t cut it.
But that unavailable product can also get in the way of selling something else. If sold-out items are mixed throughout your collection or category pages, they’re taking up space that could be showing shoppers comparable products they can order right now.
Imagine a shopper opening your holiday gifts category and seeing four sold-out products among the first eight items. Even if you have dozens of great alternatives farther down the page, you’ve made that shopper work harder to find them. On a phone, those unavailable items can mean several extra swipes before anything useful turns up.
A sold-out bestseller may have made sense at the top of the page last week. But it should keep that spot if it can’t be purchased.
Give Shoppers a Reason to Come Back
Some shoppers will happily choose an alternative, while others came for one specific product, size, or color. For that second group, a back-in-stock notification gives them a next step instead of leaving them at a dead end.
The solution is simple, let shoppers enter their email address when an item is unavailable, then notify them when it’s back. They don’t have to remember to check your store, and you have another opportunity to earn the sale without hoping they happen to visit again. You can even include a coupon code in the email to sweeten the deal and close the sale.
That’s what Back In Stock Wizard from Your Store Wizards does. Available for BigCommerce and Shopify, the app lets shoppers request an email notification for an unavailable product or variant and automatically alerts them when inventory returns.
You can customize the signup form and notification emails to fit your store, while subscriber activity helps you see which products shoppers are waiting for. Those requests can be useful when you’re deciding what deserves attention before the next promotion.
An alert won’t guarantee an order, especially if a shopper has already bought a gift elsewhere. But it gives you a way to follow up while there’s still an opportunity, which is a lot more useful than hoping “out of stock” somehow turns into “see you again soon.”
Stop Giving Sold-Out Products the Best Spots on the Page
Back-in-stock alerts help with shoppers who want a particular item. Your category and collection pages need a plan for everyone who is still browsing.
Moving unavailable products to the bottom lets orderable merchandise occupy the most visible positions. You can keep temporarily sold-out products accessible for shoppers who want to view the details or request an alert, while making the rest of the catalog easier to shop.
Magic Sorter from Your Store Wizards helps you manage product placement on BigCommerce category pages and Shopify collection pages. Its drag-and-drop sorting gives you control over what shoppers see first, and automatic out-of-stock / back-in stock sorting helps maintain your merchandising without repeatedly rearranging products by hand.
Yes, you read that right! Magic Sorter can move unavailable products to the bottom and restore their placement when inventory returns. You can configure the rules and sorting schedule either for specific collections / categories, or for your entire store.
That means your carefully arranged gift category doesn’t have to turn into a display of everything that sold out during your last email promotion. Products customers can buy get the visibility they need, and you spend less time moving merchandise around your website.
Two Apps, Two Parts of the Same Problem
Picture a hot selling gift item selling out during your Black Friday promotion. With your out-of-stock sorting configured, Magic Sorter moves it down so other available gifts can take the more visible spots. A shopper who follows a direct link to the sold-out product can still use Back In Stock Wizard to request a notification.
When you replenish the item, Back In Stock Wizard alerts those interested shoppers, while Magic Sorter’s configured sorting puts the product back into position. One app handles the follow-up with the customer; the other handles where the product appears as people browse.
Neither app can make a late delivery arrive sooner. What they can do is help your store keep selling around that delay and give the replenished product another chance with shoppers who already wanted it.
Get It Working Before Holiday Traffic Arrives
The middle of a holiday promotion is a lousy time to realize your most important category is leading with sold-out merchandise and you have no back in stock notification app set up. Get your self setup for success now, while you still have time.
Start with your busiest categories, gift collections, and products most likely to sell through. Check how unavailable items appear on desktop and mobile, configure your sorting, and test the full notification process from signup through restock email. Make sure the email brings shoppers back to the right item and that your storefront reflects the product order you intended.
Also keep the calendar in mind. A product returning in December is only useful as a holiday gift if it can still reach the customer in time. Keep delivery information clear, and give shoppers who can’t wait an easy path to available alternatives.
You’re already putting effort into bringing people to your store this holiday season. Make sure sold-out products aren’t making it harder for them to spend money once they get there.
| Install Magic Sorter Now | Shopify BigCommerce |
| Install Back In Stock Wizard Now | Shopify BigCommerce |
Scott Sanfilippo began his eCommerce journey in 1994 by co-founding one of the Internet’s first online retailers, TheFerretStore.com, which was acquired by PetCo in 2006. In 2001, he co-founded the eCommerce design and marketing firm Solid Cactus, which was acquired by web.com in 2009. Today, Scott is the General Manager of Your Store Wizards and lives in Delray Beach, FL. Scott can be contacted at scott@yourstorewizards.com.