If you’re a customer, the last thing you want to see when you go to purchase an item online is that it is ‘out of stock’, or you are prompted to click the ‘notify me’ button to be advised when it will come back in stock.

As a business owner, you do not want to lose that customer to a competitor (it only takes a few clicks for the customer to do a Google search, find the desired product elsewhere and possibly at a better price and finalise that purchase).

Here are some tips which you may find useful in managing out of stock items for your business:

• Keep the page listed on your website- if the product is on its way and ready for sale soon, don’t remove the listing. An error page is frustrating for customers, and a search engine bot may remove the page entirely from the index if it has been dormant for an extended period.

• Avoid redirecting customers back to the homepage- if an item is out of stock, the customer will likely not want to be sent back to the homepage if they click on the item. It is confusing and disrupts the path of sale, meaning they have to start their search all over again (only to get the same result), and possibly take their sale elsewhere.

• Be clear about product availability- if an item is currently in stock, make it obvious and clear to the buyer on the product page. Make sure the message stands out, so there is no confusion. The customer will not appreciate adding the item to their shopping cart, only to find out at the checkout page is it not in stock.

• Implement an email notification system- give the customer the chance to purchase their product when it is back in stock on your site. As an incentive, you can include a discount off the final purchase price

At Rival we can assist you with implementing out of stock notifications on your Magento website. Improve the user experience and help manage your product stock levels. Give us a call today!