Back in stock functionality allows you to capture additional subscribers — visitors who would otherwise abandon your website without an opportunity to recover their browsing session.
Before You Begin
Back in stock functionality is available on Shopify.
Back in stock functionality is available on BigCommerce.
Back in stock is also available if you use WooCommerce. Note that the feature will work only if you use WooCommerce 6.4, WooCommerce Blocks 7.2, or higher version.
Back in stock has two options: a popup or an embedded form.
Targeting should always be set up to “Appears on pages for out-of-stock products.”
All customers who submit the form will be collected as non-subscribers.
Benefits of Back in Stock Functionality
Back in stock works great if you have a wide variety of SKUs in their catalog and a loyal customer base. If this is the case, the back in stock feature serves more effectively as a customer support and retention tool than as a feature to attract new visitors.
Having back in stock integrated into your omnichannel marketing tool means you can ensure consistent messaging to prospects and existing customers. Plus, it makes the sync of subscriber contacts between multiple platforms less painful as you can gather and manage them in one place.
Form Setup Process
Step 1. Create the Form
Go to Forms and click Create Form → You will find a form templates section in a forms library called "Gather interest in out-of-stock." Once you click Use Template, you will be navigated to the Form Builder.
Step 2. Customize the Form
Using a simple drag&drop method, you can customize your back in stock layout up to your liking: collect not only the email of your customers but any other customer-related information such as birth date, phone number, or custom with Input and Dropdown Items. Add text, images, and multiple buttons to your form as well.
Step 3. Work on Behaviour and Theme settings
You will find the Behavior and Theme settings tabs on the right-side menu. Under Behaviour Settings, you can manage Audience, Scheduling, Display, Targeting, and Visibility settings.
Audience management allows you to assign a tag to all contacts who submit the form, which can help further segmentation.
Scheduling allows you to make your sign-up form live starting from a specific date, during certain timeframes, or ending at a particular date.
Display settings will help you decide when to show this form to a visitor. You can base it on the following: page visits, time on the page, scroll depth, and exit intent.
Targeting
Targeting settings are vital for back in stock functionality. They allow you to display the form only for specific customer groups and/or on a specific URL of your store or/and not to display the form of a particular URL.
Visitor targeting options include:
All Visitors. Show your form to everyone who lands on your website.
Don't Show to Existing Contacts. Exclusively target new visitors and potential leads, leaving your existing subscribers untouched.
Show to Existing Contacts. Provide exclusive offers and updates to your loyal subscribers.
Target by Specific Segment. Include or exclude specific segments to see or not to see your form.
Page targeting options therefore include:
It appears on the URL, which displays the form on a specific page or page that contains a specific UTM.
It does not appear on a URL that doesn't display on a specific page or page with a specific UTM.
Appears on pages for out-of-stock products.
Important: Make sure the URL you pasted in the targeting options fields matches the one you see in your browser.
Some browsers change special characters (✈, ™, ☂) in the URL when copying from the browser because of this form targeting might be affected.
Additionally, you can add or remove multiple URLs on the page.
Please note you should always have the form appear on out-of-stock product pages for the back in stock to work properly. It will be enabled by default.
Visibility settings allow you to choose which devices should show the back in stock form selected. You can show it on all devices, mobile devices only, or desktop devices only.
Under Theme settings, you can manage the Form layout, Colors, Buttons, Fields, and Close.
Form Layout allows you to change the type of form to a popup or embedded form. Here you can also adjust the width of your form to up to 1000px and change the form layout and position on the page.
Under Buttons settings, you can manage your button styles for further usage in your form.
For Fields, you can define the style of your input fields, their style, font, size, colors, etc.
Close settings allow you to adjust settings to customize the close button style and enable the option to close the form by clicking outside of it.
Step 4. Enable Teaser
If you want, you can enable Teaser for your form, which will appear around the edge of the page.
Step 5. Setup Success Message
This message will be shown to users who submit the form. You can fully customize it through the Success tab.
Step 6. Validate the Form
Validate that the back in stock form is rendering correctly. Go to your store and check on a product or product variant currently out of stock.
Embedding Form on Your Website
If you want to embed the form for your store, make sure you use the embedded back in stock form template. You can easily do so by copying the embed code and pasting it into the appropriate location on your website.
Below, you can find how to embed the form into your store template.
For Shopify stores, jump to the dedicated guide.
For Bigcommerce stores, jump to the dedicated guide.
If your store is based on WordPress (using WooCommerce), follow the steps described below:
Go to the Products → select the product and click Edit. You will see the product description and short description fields and both Visual and Text editors.
2. Choose the Text editor where you want to place your form.
3. When choosing the Text editor, you can paste the form right into the content. We recommend adding the form in the short description so it would be immediately visible to the customer.
4. Once you preview the product and it’s out of stock, the form will appear.
Set Up Back in Stock Automation
Now that you can collect contacts who want to be notified when a specific product is back in stock, you need a workflow to inform them. The Back in Stock template is in the Automations Library. You can use this workflow preset and adjust email content according to your needs. To create back in stock automation, go to Automation → Create Workflow → look for Back in Stock preset and click Customize workflow.
To edit the content of the email, select the email block in your automation and click Edit content.
The default email in this automation already has an item called Back in stock. It will be used to pass relevant product information when notifying a contact. You can also add it from the Quick add menu (left side) yourself. You can find more information about this item's setting in this guide.
Once your form and automation are set up, you can relax. You'll see all metrics and the number of customers waiting for back in stock notifications in your automation stats, as shown in the image below.
Please note: You can include general tone SMS in this automation, but you cannot use dynamic event data for back-in-stock items, such as specific items users requested.
Instead, you can follow the email with product details by providing a general SMS message like "The item you asked about is back in stock."
Back in Stock Report
The Back in Stock report provides a clear overview of customer demand for out-of-stock products, helping you make data-driven restocking. To find it navigate to Reports in the top menu → Back in Stock tab. Here's what you'll see:
Product and variant details. View the product name, ID, SKU, and variant information.
Customer interest. See how many customers are waiting for each specific product.
Last request date. Track the most recent back in stock request to understand ongoing demand.
Clicking the number of waiting customers will show you the list of customers waiting for specific items.
You will see your customers' contact information (email, phone number, first and last names, and country), along with the date they requested notification about back in stock items.
Please note that you can also access the specific product page for the item that is out of stock from back in stock report and customer waiting list.
We recommend using this report to:
Identify which products have the highest demand.
Track how many customers are waiting for each item.
Restock strategically to capture lost sales.
By using this report, you can optimize your inventory planning and ensure you're restocking the right products at the right time.
FAQ
Do the back in stock embedded forms work with product variants, showing only for the out of stock variant?
Yes, the back in stock embedded form will only display for the specific variant that is out of stock. For example, if a product comes in small, medium, and large sizes, and only the small variant is out of stock, the embedded form will appear only when the small option is selected. This works the same way as the back in stock popups, ensuring customers can request a restock notification for the exact variant they want.
Still have questions? Feel free to contact us at [email protected]. We are here 24/7!