A product sells out on Tuesday. On the collection page it keeps its position, so shoppers click through to Sold out and leave. Your buyer finds out on Friday, from a spreadsheet of the whole catalogue. Two hundred shoppers pressed Notify me; when 30 units arrive, all two hundred get the email in the same minute, 30 buy, and the rest come back to a sold-out page and stop trusting your alerts. Half of that waitlist signed up eight months ago for a colour you no longer make.
Shopify records the stock. What happens next on the collection page, in the shopper’s inbox and on the buyer’s desk is up to you. This guide walks the loop in the order it happens in a store – when a product counts as sold out, what the collection page does about it, how you collect demand, when you send the restock alert, and what the buyer needs to decide the reorder – and shows the setting in StockIQ – Out-of-Stock Manager for each step.
Decide what sold out means for your catalogue
On a Shopify collection page a product shows as available while any variant has stock. A shirt with 60 units left in XS and nothing in M or L is available. So is a sofa with one of six fabrics. On the collection page they rank like a full run, and shoppers find out on the product page.
StockIQ’s Advanced Out-of-Stock Rules let you set the line yourself. A product counts as out of stock when every variant is out, when at least a number of variants are out, when at least a share of variants is out, or when every variant of one option is gone – all sizes of M, say, or one colour across the range. A stock threshold per variant treats two units left the same as none, which is what you want if two units cannot fill an order. Whatever rule you pick drives the two actions in the next step, so the collection page reacts to your definition of sold out, not Shopify’s. The rules are a paid add-on at $3.99 a month on any paid plan.
Let the collection page react on its own
Once a product is sold out by your rule, two things can happen to it. Push Down Out-of-Stock moves it to the bottom of every collection you enabled, so the first rows stay buyable and the product page keeps its URL and its ranking. Hide Out-of-Stock takes it off the store – or sets it to Draft across every channel – after it has been sold out for the number of days you choose, with a redirect if you want one. Both bring the product back when stock returns, and both run per collection, so the Sale collection can hide while the core range pushes down.
Which to use is a merchandising call, not a technical one. If the product will come back and the page ranks, push it down. If it will not, hide it. The two how-tos Push sold-out products to the bottom and Hide out-of-stock products without deleting them cover the settings and the trade-offs.
Turn Notify me into a waitlist you control
A sold-out product page is the best place to find out who wants the product. StockIQ adds a Notify me button and form. You can place the button inside the product page layout by pointing it at an element of your theme – under the Add to cart button, for example – instead of a floating widget in the corner. A consent checkbox with your own text and privacy link is one switch, for stores that need it.
Two settings decide what the list looks like after six months. Persistent alerts let a shopper ask to be told after every restock, not just the first; useful when a product sells out on every drop. Request expiry removes requests after the number of days, months or years you set – 12 months by default – so the buyer’s demand numbers reflect people who still want the product. Requests can be exported as a CSV at any time.
Send restock alerts when they are worth sending
The alert itself is the easy part. The decisions are when to send, to whom, and how many at once.
When: choose between sending as soon as stock is back, once a day at a set time, at an interval of one to 24 hours, or only when you press Run now. A minimum stock trigger – one unit by default – holds the alert until at least that many units are sellable, so a return of two units does not wake a waitlist of two hundred. StockIQ also checks that the product is active and sellable online before it sends; a product you set to Draft or archived gets no alert.
To whom: with Shopify Markets, map each market to the locations that serve it. A shopper in the EU is alerted only when stock arrives at a location linked to the EU market, not when the US warehouse restocks.
How many: batched sending releases the waitlist in groups. Pick the order – first subscribed, first notified, or the other way round – the number of shoppers per batch (50 by default) and the pause between batches (30 minutes by default; minutes, hours or days). Everyone not in the current batch stays queued for the next. The batch size and the pause set the pace; the quantity you restocked does not limit who is told, so set the batch to what your stock can serve.
The alerts list shows every request with its sent date, sortable by shopper, product, request date or sent date, and lets you resend one alert to one shopper. Emails can go through StockIQ or through Klaviyo, Omnisend or Mailchimp if that is where your templates live.
Give the buyer the lists that decide the reorder
Three lists close the loop. The daily restock reports – low stock, reached low stock, out of stock, reached zero, back in stock – arrive by email and can each be limited to the collections you choose, so a buyer for footwear gets footwear. The real-time out-of-stock alert, on plans with Real-Time Updates (included from Gold, $2.99 a month below that), sends an email to up to three addresses or a Slack message the moment a product goes out of stock, listing what just went – not the whole sold-out catalogue. And the Most Wanted Products report shows how many shoppers are waiting for each sold-out product and when the last one asked, which is the number that turns “we are out of it” into “reorder this one first”.
Two limits to know before you rely on the lists. Stock in the daily reports is the total across a product’s variants, so a shirt with 60 XS units is not low stock in that list even if your rule pushes it down. And the CSV export of the stock reports covers the whole store; the collection filter applies to the emails.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I hide sold-out products or push them down in a Shopify collection?
Push them down when the product will come back or the page still ranks for its search terms; hide them, with a redirect, when it will not. StockIQ does either per collection, after a delay you set, and republishes the product when stock returns.
Can a Shopify product count as out of stock before inventory reaches zero?
Not in Shopify itself. With StockIQ’s Advanced Out-of-Stock Rules, yes – by a stock threshold per variant, by the number or share of variants that are out, or when every variant of one option such as a size is gone. The rules are a $3.99 a month add-on.
Can back-in-stock alerts on Shopify be scheduled or sent in batches?
Yes. StockIQ sends them as soon as stock is back, once a day at a set time, at an interval, or only when you press Run now. Batches release the waitlist in groups of a size and pause you choose; shoppers not in the current batch stay queued.
Can shoppers get restock alerts only for their market?
Yes. Map each Shopify Market to the locations that serve it and StockIQ alerts a shopper only when stock arrives at a location linked to their market.
How do I decide which sold-out products to restock first?
Put the daily out-of-stock list for the collection next to the Most Wanted Products report, which counts the shoppers waiting for each product and shows the date of the latest request. A sold-out product with 140 people waiting is a different decision from one with three.
Can StockIQ tell my team the moment a product sells out?
Yes, with Real-Time Updates on: an email to up to three addresses or a Slack message listing the products that just went out of stock in that run.
Does StockIQ have a free plan?
Yes – the Bronze plan is free for stores with up to 49 products and 99 collections. Paid plans start at $5.99 a month with a 7-day trial. Advanced Out-of-Stock Rules is a $3.99 add-on; Real-Time Updates is included from Gold and $2.99 a month below that.
One loop, five settings
Define sold out for your catalogue, let the collection page react, collect the waitlist on the product page, send the alert when your stock and your shopper’s market make it worth sending, and give the buyer the lists that decide the reorder. Each step is a setting in StockIQ – Out-of-Stock Manager, a Built for Shopify app. Start on the StockIQ page, then start the 7-day free trial on the Shopify App Store.
