There’s no better feeling than “selling out” and still having more customers who want to buy your products. But while this image looks exciting, it comes with a considerable downside.
Sold-out products put you at risk of losing customers – simply because they wouldn’t know when a product is back in stock to purchase it. They can also frustrate your customers and make them buy from your competitors instead, leading to business and customer loss.
But what if there was a way to avoid this?
By enabling waitlists for your online store, you can keep customers updated about their favorite product’s availability and immediately notify them when it’s back in stock.
This will not only help you keep customers engaged but also prevent you from losing valuable sales. You don’t have to take our word for it – research suggests notifying customers when products come back in stock turns 10-15% of requests into actual purchases.
Creating and managing waiting lists online can be pretty taxing with all the back-and-forth. Good thing you have WooCommerce waitlist plugins to make the job easy for you. These plugins help you manage your stock, add customers to waitlists, and automatically send alerts about their desired products.
This article will take you through six of the best WooCommerce waitlist plugins that can help you recover missed sales. But first, let’s understand how these plugins work and can help your bottom line.
How do waitlist plugins work?
Waitlist plugins allow customers to subscribe to an out-of-stock product, join its waitlist, and get notified about its availability. They require customers to enter their email address, and then automatically send them notification alerts when the product is available again.
This way, these plugins save both you and your customers time – you don’t have to manually inform every customer while they don’t have to visit your store repeatedly to check for the product’s availability. They can rest assured that they’ll be notified when it’s restocked.
Moreover, subscribing to a waiting list can increase the chances of them buying from you instead of turning to your competitors. It also makes your customers feel valued and can enhance their loyalty to your brand.
What’s even better is that waitlist plugins help you measure the demand for products and replenish your stock intelligently – based on what your customers want.
Given how they can help you boost sales and improve customer experience, these plugins can be an excellent addition to your store.
Top WooCommerce waiting list plugins
YITH WooCommerce Waiting List
Yith WooCommerce Waiting List prevents you from losing customers to out-of-stock products by activating waiting lists on your store.
It automatically adds an “Add to waiting list” button when a product runs out of stock. Then, when you mark it as “In Stock” again, it sends emails to customers informing them about the same.
The plugin comes with extensive customization features – you can customize the subscription text, the email notifications, and even the color and font of the subscribe button – so it aligns with your website’s theme.
Using the plugin, you can also plan a product’s pre-launch and create a waitlist of people who want to buy it as soon as it’s launched. Additionally, it lets you store users’ names/email ids after sending back-in-stock emails – so you have a database ready for future communications.
Top feature: You can send emails to a specific number of users based on the quantity available after restocking. So, for example, if you added only five units of a product, you can send emails to the first five users on its waiting list.
Pricing: $79.99/year with 1-year updates and support and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
WooCommerce Waitlist
With WooCommerce Waitlist, you can send your customers email notifications when depleted products become available again.
Again, you can customize the color and text of waiting list buttons and the content of emails. Customers can also manage their waiting lists from the “My Account” page.
What’s interesting about this plugin is that it lets you sort products by the number of people on their waiting lists. This helps you identify which products are in most demand and restock accordingly.
Moreover, you can also set a minimum quantity of a product to be added before it starts sending email notifications. In the back-in-stock alerts, the plugin also attaches a link to the product to smoothen the buying process for customers.
Top feature: It lets you add a Google Analytics tracking code to notification emails so you can track email opens and click-throughs.
Pricing: $49/year with 1-year updates and support and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Back In Stock Notifications
WooCommerce’s Back In Stock Notifications lets customers join a waitlist when they land on an out-of-stock product and get updated about its availability without any manual hassle.
Besides sending product alerts, it also sends customers confirmation emails after they join a waitlist. Every email also includes an “Unsubscribe” button so that customers can easily opt-out if they want to.
What’s more, the plugin lets customers subscribe to all types of products – even bundled or variable ones. It also gives you deep insights into your inventory, helping you assess the demand for sold-out products and understand which products to restock first.
Its integration with Action Scheduler allows you to send a large number of emails together – this is especially helpful if your store gets high traffic during sales and the holiday season.
Top feature: Its clean dashboard gives you insights on customer activity and products – like total sign-ups during a particular period, total notifications sent, and overdue products you need to restock.
Pricing: $49/year with 1-year updates and support and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
SUMO WooCommerce Waitlist
SUMO Waitlist lets both members and guest users at your store join waitlists for sold-out products and get notified by mail about their availability.
It automatically shows a waitlist subscription button when a product (simple or variable) runs out of stock. However, you can also restrict waitlist subscriptions to specific products.
Interestingly, it also automatically enters the email ids of logged-in users who want to join a waitlist, thus enabling a smooth customer experience.
And while it automates managing waitlists and sending emails, you can also add users to a product’s waitlist or send in-stock alerts manually. The plugin also includes product links in emails so customers can complete their purchases quickly.
Top feature: You can set a “Minimum Inventory Threshold” to be met before sending in-stock emails. It also displays a waitlist count against each product so you can adjust inventory accordingly.
Pricing: The license costs $39 with all future updates and six months of support.
Waitlist Plugin by CreateIt
CreateIt’s Waitlist Plugin is a great tool that invites customers to add out-of-stock items to their waiting lists. It supports all types of WooCommerce products (including grouped ones) and shows the subscriber count for each product – so that you can prioritize restocking of the most in-demand items.
You can also choose if you want to send subscription success emails or only in-stock notification emails and if you want to send alerts manually or let the plugin send them for you – allowing massive flexibility.
The plugin also offers vast customization features – you can customize the emails sent, the subscription button, the registration message displayed, and the “Removed from waitlist” text.
Moreover, while most plugins send back-in-stock messages as soon as a product’s stock is replenished, Waitlist Plugin lets you delay these emails. You can easily view and edit the subscribers’ queue and decide whom to send emails to and when.
Top feature: It notifies you when a user buys an item they subscribed to, helping you assess the purchase intent for products and how your email templates are working.
Pricing: The license costs $18 with all future updates and six months of support.
Back In Stock Notifier for WooCommerce
Back In Stock Notifier automatically displays an email subscription button in the frontend when a product runs out of stock. It lets both members and guests join waitlists and supports all types of WooCommerce products – from simple and variable to subscription and bundles.
The plugin comes with various add-ons that further increase its functionality. For instance, the Track Sales extension shows you which subscribers purchased products through in-stock emails. One extension lets you customize the subscription form, while another enables you to create a double opt-in verification for waitlists.
It also offers a Mailchimp add-on so you can sync your subscribers’ data with the email marketing tool.
Top feature: Its WPML add-on lets you send back-in-stock emails to subscribers in their language, thus allowing localization which can help improve email open and click-through rates.
Pricing: Free; each add-on costs $5.
Conclusion
WooCommerce waitlist plugins allow you to turn sold-out products into a favorable situation for your store and build a list of potential customers who want to turn into paying customers.
These plugins not only let you engage customers but also understand the demand for products and plan your inventory accordingly, so you’re making data-driven product decisions and not working through assumptions.
These six plugins are some of the best to implement a waiting list functionality on your store – but the one you choose should ultimately depend on your requirements, customer base, and budget.
WooCommerce: Waiting List for Out-Of-Stock Products .