How to notify a customer when an item is in stock?

Shopify Apps
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Shopify currently has the option to show a form that will let the shop owner know that a customer wants to be notified when an out of stock item is in stock.

Can this be done within the shopify code or would an app need to be created?

I am a dev and fairly new to the Shopify community/api/etc.

1 Like
2

Hi Sam,

Yes, that’s right! You can follow this tutorial here to add a back in stock notification form to your site. When a customer uses the form to submit their email address, you will be sent information about the product that they are interested in. Currently, with this method, you would manually need to reply to the emails that have been sent to you in regards to the out of stock product.

If you’re not a big coder, and you’d like a free way to reply to customers who want to be notified when products are back in stock, the below method can be used as a workaround:

  1. Set up a filter for your inbox where the ‘notify me’ emails are being sent. Here are some instructions for Gmail on filtering messages (Each inbox varies slightly, use keywords that relate to the product name.)
  2. Use the Email Address Extractor (If you’re using Gmail) to give you a list of emails on a Google Sheet.
  3. Upload the email list to service such as MailChimp.
  4. Send out a mass email notifying all the customers who submitted a form about that particular product.

Alternatively, you can use an app such as Back in Stock, Back in Stock Alerts, Stockify and In-Stock Alerts. These apps let customers signup for in-stock notifications and sends an email notifying them when you restock.

If you’d like to create an app yourself, a challenge to be aware of is, that you need to create a service that will gather the email addresses, and fire a response on your behalf when there’s a trigger. The apps often integrate with mail services such as MailChimp to help them with this process. If you wanted to go one step further like Back in Stock, you can even connect this trigger directly to the stock levels so the notification process is automated. As a new dev this is quite the undertaking, however, it can be done! Check out the Shopify API Help Centre here if you haven’t already. This is also a neat article on how to build an app in one week.

Best of luck!

  • Lisa
3 Likes
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Thanks Lisa,

But like I said, we currently have the experience you mentioned. I want to have it all automated. Hence my post.

I am a coder, as I mentioned (dev). I was just not sure how to go about doing so.

4

my html doesn’t look like that

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Hi! Were you ever able to figure out how to send out automated “restocked” emails from your Shopify account

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There are a few apps out there that allow you to send restock notifications automatically. I am a little bias and would suggest Back in Stock https://backinstock.org.

1 Like
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Hey, there are a number of apps in the Shopify ecosystem. But I have had the chance to try this one out for automated back in stock alerts - https://apps.shopify.com/customer-back-in-stock-alert-user-notification-app. Since they’re developer-driven too, you might also be able to work with them on any customizations you need.

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If I use a 3rd party app for this, how do I delete the one that was built in shopify?

2 Likes
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If I understand well, you would like to have a signup form on your Shopify store to notify customers when an item is back in stock.

Due to theme limitations, coding this feature on Shopify can be difficult, especially since the code differs between sectioned and non-sectioned themes. Even with the help available online, it can be difficult to figure out how to actually implement this code, particularly for non-programmers.

In fact, if a product is out of stock, the code for embedding a back-in-stock notification form simply adds a contact form to the product page. This does not automatically send an email to the customer when an item is back in stock. This means that sorting through hundreds of contact emails to find the ones that are relevant to a specific product will be difficult.

For now (except using a third-party app) these are the only steps you can take to send notification emails when your item is back in stock:

  • The first step is to go through your Gmail inbox and look for messages from customers who have sent a ‘notify me’ email about a specific product.
  • Using this tool, you can extract email addresses from your Gmail account and save them to a Google Spreadsheet.
  • The next step is to upload this list to an email marketing tool and send a mass email to all customers who’ve sent emails about specific products.

As you can see, doing this for every single product can be time-consuming.

The good news is that there are numerous third-party alert apps that can help you set up automated notifications to notify customers when products are back in stock. Some of these even allow you to easily customize the email templates to match the tone of your brand.

Helplama’s helpdesk, for example, is a one-of-a-kind solution that automatically detects issues with your customers’ orders and helps you in proactively resolving the situation with AI-drafted emails. Some other popular solutions include Back In Stock by Cartbite, Appikon, Sealapps, Shopgram, etc.

Best of luck!

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Hi We have uses the code option

is there anyway to report on what items people are requesting notifications on so we know what to re-order?
Tracey

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Hey Sam,

Using Shopify’s back in stock notification form

By using the back in stock notification form through Shopify, consumers can let merchants know they’d like to be informed when a sold-out product comes back into stock. Once a customer submits their email address via the form, Shopify merchants will be sent information about the product that the customer is interested in. When the stock is available again, you can tell your customers. Using this method means that you, the merchant, will have to manually reply to the back in stock emails from your customers.

Alternative Shopify apps

If you’re after a more automated process, then an app could be the better choice. Apps such as Back in Stock: Customer Alerts and Back in Stock Alerts could provide you with what you want.

Back in Stock: Customer Alerts

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Does anyone know of a 3rd party back in stock app that has admin function to inform a customer who has signed up for a BIS alert that a product has been discontinued and will NOT be back in stock, and offer a recommendation for a closely related product?

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It looks like the link to https://help.shopify.com/en/themes/customization/forms/add-product-availability-reminder-form no longer exists and redirects to community discussions

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