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.
Please note that currently, only products with product variants can trigger back-in-stock automation emails. This is applicable to all ecommerce platforms that support this functionality (Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce).
Please note that only product variants can be tracked and processed by WooCommerce's automation engine for back-in-stock statuses. It is important to keep in mind that this functionality does not extend to products without variants.
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.
If you are using a custom theme or recently switched to one and noticed that the back-in-stock form is no longer working, this may be because your product pages no longer have separate URLs for each variant. The back-in-stock form only functions when there are distinct URLs for different product variants.
If you encounter this issue, please check with your theme's developers to see if they can enable the page and URL to change when an out-of-stock variant is selected.
Benefits of Back-in-Stock Functionality
Back-in-stock works great for merchants with 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 sync of subscriber contacts between multiple platforms less painful as you will gather and manage them in one place.
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.
Form color allows you to change the form, background, and link colors.
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 variant) currently out of stock.
Step 7. Set Up Back-in-Stock Automation
Now that you can collect contacts who want to get notified when a specific product is back in stock, you need a workflow to inform them. You will see "Back in stock." template in Automations Library. You can use this workflow preset and adjust email content according to your needs.
This email 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 yourself.
Once you have a form and automation enabled, you can sit down and relax.
Embedding the Form
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.
Still have questions? Feel free to contact us at [email protected]. We are here 24/7!