Selling Out and Saying So

Four phrases that are not synonyms

Sold out suggests popularity and implies it will return.

Out of stock is neutral and says nothing about when.

Temporarily unavailable promises a return without committing to a date.

And back soon is a promise you may not be able to keep, which is the one to be careful with.

The three real situations

• Back on a known date.
• Back, date unknown.
• Not coming back.

Every stock message should tell the customer which of those three they are looking at, because each requires a different response from them and a vague message makes all three look identical.

If you know the date, give it

Which is the easy case and is frequently handled badly anyway.

Back in stock on a stated date is a useful message, and a customer can decide whether to wait.

Offer a notification when it returns, which is the standard mechanism and takes minutes to enable.

Be careful with dates in December, since back in stock on the twentieth is useless for a gift and saying so is more honest than letting somebody wait.

Where the return date is after the cutoff, say that explicitly: back in January, which will not arrive before Christmas.

That sentence loses the sale honestly rather than losing the customer.

If you do not know, say that

Which people avoid and should not.

We do not have a date yet is a perfectly acceptable message and is believed.

It is considerably better than back soon, which sets an expectation you will fail and produces a message in three weeks asking where it is.

Offer the notification anyway, since somebody willing to be told is a customer you keep.

And where the reason is interesting, give it: the supplier has closed for the season, or the next production run is in February.

A reason converts a frustration into information, which people accept.

Nobody resents a supplier having closed for the season; they resent being told nothing.

The reason costs one sentence and changes the whole message.

A worked example

A small shop used back soon on everything unavailable.

Two products returned in a fortnight, one returned in March, and one never returned at all.

They received messages every week asking about the last two, and one customer left a review saying the shop had been promising an item since November.

They changed to three messages: a date where known, no date yet with a reason, and discontinued.

The enquiries stopped and the notification sign-ups rose, since a specific message is worth signing up to.

The wording was the entire change and nothing about the stock itself was different.

Three messages instead of one solved a problem they had assumed was operational.

Say it plainly when something is gone

Which is the case shops handle worst.

A discontinued product left showing as out of stock generates enquiries indefinitely and disappoints everybody who makes one.

Mark it discontinued, say so on the page, and point to the nearest alternative you do sell.

Keep the page rather than deleting it, since it may still bring people from search, and a discontinued page that recommends something else is a working page.

That is the difference between a dead end and a redirect somebody chooses to follow.

Deleting it produces an error page and loses whatever that page had accumulated over the years.

Keeping it costs nothing and it goes on working.

The alternative you point to is what turns the visit into a sale.

Do not hide the unavailable items

Which is the instinct and is usually wrong.

Removing out-of-stock products from the shop makes the range look smaller and loses the search traffic those pages earn.

Better to show them, clearly marked, sorted below the available items.

Somebody arriving at an unavailable product with a clear message and a good alternative frequently buys the alternative.

Somebody arriving at nothing at all leaves.

Most shop software has a setting for exactly this and it is worth finding.

Update it the day it changes

Which is the operational half.

The expensive failure is not being out of stock; it is selling something you cannot supply, which produces a refund, an apology, and a customer with no gift.

In a busy December that means checking stock levels daily rather than weekly, particularly on anything selling faster than usual.

Set the low-stock threshold higher than usual for the season, so the warning arrives before the problem.

An hour a day of attention here prevents the worst customer experience your shop can produce.

Use the notification list afterwards

Which is the part shops set up and then forget about.

Everybody who asked to be told when something returns has given you a signal considerably stronger than a newsletter signup: they want one specific thing.

Message them the day it is back, individually rather than as part of a general mailing, and say plainly that it has returned.

Those messages convert at a rate nothing else you send comes close to, because the person asked for exactly this.

Check the list is actually sending, since a notification feature switched on and never tested is a common and silent failure.

The counter-case

Scarcity does sell.

A genuinely limited item marked sold out communicates something real, and shops that use it honestly benefit.

Over-explaining can also be more than a customer wants, since most people reading an unavailable product simply move on.

And a shop with a handful of products can manage all of this in conversation rather than through page wording.

The wording matters in proportion to how many products nobody is watching individually.

At forty products it is the difference between a tidy shop and a confusing one.

Say which of the three situations applies, give a date or a reason, mark discontinued items plainly, and check stock daily.

What to do

1. Write three messages, not one.
2. Give the date where known.
3. Say no date yet where not.
4. Add the reason.
5. Mark discontinued plainly.
6. Point at an alternative.
7. Check stock daily.

Step three is the one shops avoid and customers prefer, since no date yet is believed and back soon produces a message in three weeks asking where it is.

The operational side is covered in out of stock on your best seller.

Frequently asked questions

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