By: Desirae Odjick
Welcome to Ask Shopify, a series where ecommerce experts from the Shopify community answer real questions from entrepreneurs who are trying to launch, build, and scale their online stores. We’re here to help with every aspect of your business, from marketing to accounting to customer service and more.
It all started with an email.
Our editorial team sent a brief holiday thank-you email asking readers a simple question:
“If you could ask a world-class ecommerce expert for advice on any area of your business, what would you ask and why?”
We got so many thoughtful, detailed, interesting questions back that Ask Shopify was born.
At Shopify, we’re lucky to have a deep bench of ecommerce experts we can talk to—everyone from our colleagues who run their own stores, to our Shopify Experts, to our customers and community members. Now, with Ask Shopify, you do too. Ask Shopify is about providing solutions for the real problems store owners want to solve, by connecting our readers with the experts who can answer their questions.
Without further ado, here’s the first question we’re answering in Ask Shopify!
Question:
When your online product is no longer in stock, what ecommerce and/or marketing opportunities should a small business employ to avoid losing a customer or a potential sale for a different product?
Some of our products are seasonal, and once they’re gone, that’s it for the season. Others are year round, and it would be great to direct people there—or at least avoid losing them if they find a product that’s no longer available.
Answer:
Getting customers to your store is enough of a challenge, so you’re 100% right that once they’re there, you want to keep them around—even if they’re interested in a product they can’t get right now.
There are plenty of reasons items might be sold out, whether it’s seasonality, the nature of the product (ahem, there are only so many things you can hand-craft at once) or even just learning the ropes of how much inventory you need to hold.
Luckily, with a few tweaks, a sold-out item doesn’t have to mean a lost customer.
A sold-out item doesn’t have to mean a lost customer.
Akemi Hiatt, Creative Director at Hidden Gears, has worked with clients who have sold out products for a variety of reasons, and at the end of the day, she says it’s a customer experience challenge and not just a product page issue.
“I think it's partially a design decision, and then a copy decision, and all of those decisions are aimed at creating an experience that will allow people to feel taken care of instead of confused,” says Akemi.
When customers hit a product page, but they can’t buy anything, it’s not what they’re expecting—which is why it’s a good chance to exceed their expectations.
“If you're going to provide an outcome that people don't expect, generally people will be very forgiving, and can even come away feeling good that that didn't happen, as long as you made the process clear and easy.”
So how do you actually do that? Here are three main things you can look at implementing.
Email Sign-Ups
“[You can] set it up so that the product page drives to an email list for interest, so that they can sign up and get notified when it's back in stock,” says Akemi.
That way, when people land on the page, they don’t just leave. There’s something for them to do, and you’ll build an email list of people who did, at one point, want to buy that exact product.
“It’s a way for you to both capture that sale, but also add that person to your mailing list for future promotions.”
This option might be built into your store's theme, but if it’s not, you can check out apps like Back in Stock and Now Back in Stock.
Landing Pages
You can also use the “I wish I could buy this right now, but it looks like I can’t” moment to build more of an experience for your customer (and do a bit of marketing while you’re at it).
“You can set up a dedicated page with some recommended products, that also serves as a landing page with a message about why that particular item isn’t in stock, and include some sort of brand touch,” says Akemi.
While the specifics will depend on your particular business, she offers a great example to clarify her point.
Read More at: https://www.shopify.com/blog/sold-out-product-page
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