Back-in-stock alerts

When a tracked variant sells out, your product page can show a “Notify me” form. Shoppers leave their email, and Sellerlane emails them automatically the moment that variant is back — with a live inventory re-check at send time, so you never invite a buyer back to an item that just sold out again.

When the form appears

The signup is rendered by the Back-in-stock signup block on the product template. It only appears when both of these are true:

• The product is a physical product (or a bundle). Digital products, event bookings, and gift cards are excluded — their availability isn’t inventory-driven.
• The currently selected variant is genuinely out of stock. The form is hidden while the variant is available, and is shown per variant — so a buyer who selects a sold-out size sees it even when other sizes are in stock.

A variant counts as available (and the form stays hidden) when it has a positive inventory level, has continue selling when out of stock enabled, or isn’t inventory-tracked. Subscriptions are stored per variant, so each size or colour collects its own demand.

Note

The block ships in the default theme. If you don’t see the form on a sold-out product, open the visual editor and confirm the Back-in-stock signup block is added to the product template. See Visual editor guide.

What happens automatically

1. A shopper enters their email on a sold-out variant and submits. A confirmation message tells them they’ll be emailed when it’s back.

2. When you restock, a background job (running about once a minute) finds active subscriptions whose variant is now in stock and re-checks live inventory on the primary database before sending — so a lagging read can never trigger a wrong-timing email.

3. Each subscriber receives one back-in-stock email linking straight to the product, then the subscription is marked notified so it never sends twice.

There is no separate dashboard to configure — capturing demand and sending the emails is on by default for any sold-out tracked variant whose product template includes the block.

Built-in safeguards

• No duplicate sign-ups or sends. Re-subscribing the same email to the same variant refreshes the existing request rather than creating a new one, and the email is de-duplicated so a retry can’t double-send.
• Anti-abuse rate limit. Because the form is public, each email is capped at 10 new sign-ups per store per hour, preventing someone from signing a victim’s address up across your whole catalogue.
• One-click unsubscribe. Every back-in-stock email carries a signed, tokenised unsubscribe link. It’s idempotent — clicking twice is safe — and needs no login.
• Requests expire. Unanswered sign-ups expire after 90 days, so stale demand never produces a surprise email months later.
• Auto-prune on delete. If you delete a variant, its pending subscriptions are cancelled in the same save — they’re never silently promoted to the product as a whole.

Caution

Sending requires the STOCK_NOTIFICATION_SIGNING_SECRET environment variable (at least 32 characters) so unsubscribe links can be signed. Without it, the alert flow can’t dispatch emails. Emails also wait until a live storefront domain is serving the store.

Troubleshooting

• Form doesn’t show on a sold-out product — the product isn’t physical/bundle, the selected variant is still available somewhere, or the Back-in-stock signup block isn’t on the template.
• Buyer didn’t get an email after restock — confirm the variant truly shows in stock (check Locations and inventory), that the request hadn’t expired, and that the recipient isn’t on your email suppression list.

Next steps

• Locations and inventory — manage the stock levels that trigger alerts.
• Self-service requests — let buyers handle their own order changes without contacting you.
• Emails — review the transactional emails your store sends.