If you’ve crafted a strategy to bring shoppers who encountered product stock-outs back to your site, good job! It’s a must to have a restock alert strategy. But with increased competition, it’s time to level up your strategy too. A simple restock alert hardly works anymore. Don’t worry – we have the restock alert strategy that you will find useful for your Shopify store.
The upgrade your back in stock strategy needs
Send out a simple restock alert
However elaborate your restock alert strategy, the first back in stock message you send should be simple. Keep it straightforward and to the point. By keeping it simple, you will be able to highlight all the key information that you want to. Your purpose of sending the message – to inform subscribers will be achieved. Here’s an example of a simple restock notification:
Advantages of keeping the restock message simple:
- You can focus on one key message
- You can share information clearly
- It ensures your message is easily understood
- Your message becomes accessible to all subscribers because it is simple
Show social proof in your restock alert
When we hear of a bestseller book or a movie with five star reviews, we want to read the book and watch the movie. That’s what social proof does.It drives people to follow other people’s actions. You can use this tactic in your restock alert strategy. And there are different kinds of social proofs that you can include in your restock messaging. Such as:
- Customer reviews and ratings
- User-generated content. For example, customers using the product
- Tell subscribers how many people have bought the product
- Tell subscribers how many people are currently exploring the product
Share more social proof
Whether you sell clothes and accessories, electronics or groceries on your online store, social proof gives you the edge to change customers’ purchasing decisions. And social proof has many different types. While we discussed some types above - reviews, ratings, etc. - there are more.Take your social proof sharing to a new level by making the following a part of your back in stock strategy:
- Include reviews left by customers on third-party websites
- Share images of celebrities using your products
- Share your influencers’ content on your channels
- Share user-generated content
Offer an incentive on the restocked product
Just because you send out restock alerts to customers doesn’t mean they’ll throng your website in no time. You’ll have to put in more effort to bring them back to your site.One way to entice customers to take actions on your back in stock alerts is to offer incentives. When it comes to offering incentives, discounts and free shipping are nothing new. However, what’s new is how you will make it relevant to your customers. First, let us see the different types of incentives you can share with customers:
- Free shipping
- Percentage discount
- Buy 1 get 1 free
- Store credits
- Discount on the next purchase
And now, here’s how to make it relevant to your subscribers:
- Segment your back in stock alert subscribers
- Send incentives that are relevant to the different segments
- Personalize incentives. If that means thinking about each subscriber separately, do it
Some ideas to help you make incentives relevant for your subscribers:
Send a reminder for limited period offer
In the eCommerce space, if you don’t appear in front of your customers, they might forget you. It’s true. With so many online stores selling what you are selling, it’s easy for your customers to get distracted. Unless you keep reminding them about your store.In the same way, if you don’t keep reminding subscribers about the restocked items, it might slip out of their mind. So here’s what you should do:
- Send reminders to your subscribers simply because they might have missed your earlier Shopify back in stock notifications
- Personalize the reminders and send it only to those subscribers for whom it’s relevant
- Time the reminders correctly. For example, send the notifications much in advance from the time the offer is going to end
- Create urgency when you send reminder messages
Send personalized recommendations
From Spotify to Instagram – with everything around us offering personalized experiences, consumers expect the same from eCommerce brands as well.91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations relevant to them (Accenture).While you might be applying personalization to your other marketing campaigns, are you using it in your back in stock notification strategy? If not, it’s time to update your strategy.Do this:
- Send product recommendations within your restock alert notifications
- Make the recommendations personalized to your subscribers
- Nothing can be more annoying that recommending a product that the subscriber has already bought, so be careful and pay attention to detail
SourceSome ways to personalize recommendations:
- Recommendations based on past purchases: Make use of your subscribers’ past purchase data. Personalize recommendations based on their interests and tastes as seen from their past purchases.
- Category recommendation: Instead of recommending products that shoppers subscribed for, recommend entire categories. For example, if a customer subscribed to be alerted for a smartphone, recommend phone accessories.
- Send recommendations when you’re not sure about the restock date: It’s possible that you don’t know when your product will get restocked. In such a case, you could send recommendations of other alternative, similar products to engage your subscribers.
Combine restock alert with upselling & cross-selling
It’s possible that there's a considerable amount of time between the time a person subscribed and the time they received the restock alert. In the meantime, you got an upgraded and better alternative to the item that was restocked. So why not introduce the new item to the subscriber along with the restock alert?As a brand, you want to offer better things to your shoppers. Upselling is one way to do it. Another scenario can be that the subscriber already bought the item or an alternative from your site. In this case, cross-sell.Here are a few tips to upsell and cross-sell via your restock alert:
- Tell subscribers how the new product will add value to them. Do this through images, video and copy
- Personalize upselling and cross-selling by understanding the subscriber and their needs by using data
- Customers will be spending more on the new product, so offer them some incentive such as free shipping, a discount, etc.
Wrap-up
You may have the best back in stock strategy. But if you don’t have the right tools to complement it, it can slow down the success of your plans. And that’s why you need to implement automation using the Appikon Back in Stock app.
