Back-in-stock waitlist

When a product sells out, shoppers on your storefront can ask to be emailed when it comes back. Every request lands in one place: Inventory → Restock Waitlist.

The page ranks products by how many people are waiting, so the biggest number is the strongest reorder signal you have. Expand a row to see the individual email addresses and which size or colour each person asked about.

How to set a product up so shoppers can join the waitlist

Three things have to be true on the product. All three live on the product itself, not in any waitlist screen:

1. Manage Inventory is ON.
2. The quantity is 0.
3. Backorders are off ("Block", the default).

That is the whole setup. There is no waitlist switch on a product.

Marking a product "Not for Sale" does the opposite of what it looks like. With the Manage Inventory toggle off you can pick In Stock or Not for Sale, and neither one collects a waitlist. Not for Sale means you are not selling this item at all, so Brainerce keeps no stock count for it and there is no number that can come back. A shopper sees "unavailable" and no email box.

If you mean "I sold out and I am restocking", turn Manage Inventory on and type 0. The product reads as sold out, and the waitlist starts filling.

On a product with variants, each variant is judged on its own. Set the medium to tracked at 0 and the medium offers a waitlist; a small left on In Stock does not.

Who sends the email, and when

Brainerce sends it, automatically. You do not write it, schedule it, or press send.

The check runs every two minutes. When a sold-out item becomes available again, and stays available for a few minutes, the waiting shoppers start getting emailed.

Each person receives exactly one email about that item, and nothing else. Once it goes out, their request is closed. If the product sells out again later, they are free to ask again.

Turning it on or off, and how many people get emailed

Both live under Channels → (your storefront) → Settings → Inventory, in the same block as the low-stock warning.

Back-in-stock alerts switches the feature on or off for that storefront. Off means shoppers can no longer ask, and nobody already on the waitlist is emailed while it stays off. Nothing is deleted: switch it back on and the waitlist picks up exactly where it stopped.

People per unit controls the wave size. The default is 3, which means a 3-unit restock emails 9 people, oldest request first.

• Raise it to reach more of the list per restock, at the cost of sending more people to a product that may sell out before they arrive.
• Lower it to 1 to email only as many people as you have units.
• Set it to 0 to email the entire waitlist the moment stock lands. That is the right setting for a drop where the race is the point. For ordinary restocking it sends most of your list to a page that says sold out again.

These are per storefront. If you run more than one sales channel, each has its own setting.

Why the emails do not all go out at once

If 500 people are waiting and you restock 3 units, Brainerce emails roughly 9 people, not 500. It sends in waves sized to what actually came back, oldest request first.

This is deliberate. Emailing all 500 about 3 units means 497 people click through to a page that says sold out again, which is a bad experience you would be paying for. Everyone who was not emailed keeps their place in the queue for your next restock.

So a shopper can wait through a restock without hearing from you. That is normal. If you restock a small quantity, most of the waitlist stays on the list.

Why the email is delayed by a few minutes

Available stock is your total minus what open carts and orders are holding. Every time a shopper abandons a cart, those units go back into Available for a moment before someone else takes them.

If Brainerce emailed on that, your waitlist would get "it's back!" messages for a single unit that vanishes seconds later. So stock has to stay available for a few minutes before anything is sent.

Where the button appears on your storefront

On a sold-out product, in place of Add to Cart. It shows only when the item is genuinely unavailable and cannot be backordered.

If you allow backorders on a product, no button appears, and that is correct. A backorderable product can still be bought while out of stock, so there is nothing for a shopper to wait for.

You will also see nothing on products where you do not track stock. With Manage Inventory off, both In Stock and Not for Sale hide the button: neither keeps a stock count, so neither has anything to come back from. A sold-out product needs Manage Inventory on with a quantity of 0.

If your storefront was built before this feature existed, the button will not be there until your storefront code is updated to include it.

Is this the same as my newsletter list?

No, and the difference matters.

Someone asking about one sold-out shirt has not joined your mailing list. They have not given you marketing consent, no customer account is created for them, and their address does not become part of any campaign audience. You cannot email them anything else.

They can also stop the alert at any time by clicking a link in the email. That cancels only that one alert. It does not unsubscribe them from your marketing, and it does not touch anything else about them.

The reverse is true too: someone who unsubscribed from your marketing can still ask for a back-in-stock alert, and will still get it. Asking about a specific product is not marketing.

If you want a mailing list, that is a separate thing. See Email campaigns and Newsletter signup.

What you can and cannot do from the waitlist page

You can read it: which products, how many people, which addresses, which variant, when they asked.

You cannot email the waitlist yourself, add someone to it, or remove someone from it. The page is a demand report, not a contact list. Those people asked to hear about one product, and only the restock or their own cancel link ends that.

What this feature does not do

• No SMS and no WhatsApp. Email only.
• No price-drop alerts. It watches availability, not price.
• No discount code in the email. The message is about the product and nothing else. This is not a style choice: an email that carries an offer is legally a marketing message and needs an unsubscribe link and your postal address, which would change what this is.
• No editing the email. The wording, colours and layout come from your store name and brand colour. There is no template for it under Settings → Email.
• No alert when only some variants return. A shopper who asked about the medium hears when the medium is back, not when the small is.

Why nobody is on the waitlist

If the page is empty, the usual reasons are:

1. Your storefront does not have the button yet. This is by far the most common. The waitlist only fills if your product pages offer it.
2. Your sold-out products are marked "Not for Sale" instead of tracked at 0. The second most common. It is the natural thing to click and it blocks the waitlist. Turn Manage Inventory on and set the quantity to 0.
3. Nothing is sold out. No sold-out product means nothing to wait for.
4. Your sold-out products allow backorders. Shoppers can already buy them, so no button appears.
5. The feature is switched off for that storefront under Channels → Settings → Inventory.

How long a request lasts

90 days. After that an unfired request expires quietly and the person is not emailed. Someone who asked about a coat last spring does not want a surprise email about it next year.

One address can have up to 25 open requests in your store at a time.