How to Decrease the Losses From Out-of-Stock Products on Shopify

Online retailers are losing out big time when it comes to lack of stock, to the tune of some $22B USD.

So how do you stop your store from leaking money from out-of-stock products and notify them when it’s back?

Here are a few ways:

Keep Your Customers up to Date With Out-of-Stock Items

The best way to avoid disappointing your loyal customers, and reduce the chance they’ll seek out a competitor’s services, is to notify them as early as you can.

Here are a few do’s and don’ts when recovering out-of-stock revenue:

• Don’t delete out-of-stock product pages. Instead, put a notification on the page to let them know the product is out of stock.
• Don’t let customers reach the checkout page before being notified that an item in their cart is out of stock.
• Do collect customer emails to be able to notify them when a product is back in your store.
• Do offer substitute items that may satisfy what they're looking for.

How to Let Your Customers Know a Product is Back in Stock

• For Shopify users, there are a few different apps that can be used to send back-in-stock notifications, emails, and SMSs. One of the best is Back In Stock: Customer Alerts.
• For other e-commerce platform users, there are many automated email and SMS alert applications, tools, and software that can be set up to notify your customers of back-in-stock products. Something like Privy or Klaviyo will do the trick.

The Bottom Line

We all know that, as a customer, there is nothing worse than finding out a highly anticipated item is out of stock. With this in mind, it’s highly important to possess the right marketing know-how and a solid back-in-stock strategy to limit this disappointment. That way, you are sure to halt leaking profits while also limiting the potential of turning away customers who are hungry to splash their hard-earned cash in your store.