Back In Stock

Let shoppers ask for an email when an out-of-stock product, or one option of a configurable product, is back in stock, or when a price drops. Guests and signed-in customers can sign up. This guide covers installation, every setting, what shoppers see, the admin pages and the command line.

• Admin demo: https://demo.softawarecommerce.com/try-admin/back-in-stock
• Changelog: Release notes · Questions: FAQ

1. Requirements

Without MSI, stock is read from Magento's stock index. With MSI, from the salable status and salable quantity of the website's stock. The MSI and reCAPTCHA integrations follow Magento's APIs but were not tested on a store with those modules installed.

2. Installation

Install with Composer from repo.softawarecommerce.com. Your access keys and the full set-up are described at https://softawarecommerce.com/shop/composer-access/.

composer config repositories.softaware composer https://repo.softawarecommerce.com
composer config --auth http-basic.repo.softawarecommerce.com PUBLIC_KEY PRIVATE_KEY
composer require softaware/module-back-in-stock
bin/magento setup:upgrade
bin/magento setup:di:compile            # production mode only
bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy # production mode only
bin/magento cache:flush

Magento's cron must be running, because the emails are sent by cron jobs. On Hyvä, run your usual Tailwind build after installing so the module's classes are included (the module registers itself for Hyvä's Tailwind source scanning).

No set-up is needed after installing: out-of-stock product pages show the form and the cron job sends the emails. To update later: composer update softaware/module-back-in-stock, then the same bin/magento commands.

3. Settings

Stores > Configuration > Softaware > Back in Stock Alerts (also Softaware > Back in Stock Alerts > Settings).

General (store view)

Emails (store view)

To change the wording, create a template from the module's template under Marketing > Email Templates and select it here. The product box in the emails (image, name, option, price, link) is the template Softaware_BackInStock::email/product.phtml, which a theme can override.

Sending and Clean-up

Spam Protection (website)

4. What shoppers see

Out-of-stock products. Below the price, the product page shows "Out of stock. We can email you when it is back." Guests enter their email address and click Email me when it is back. Signed-in customers see one button; the alert goes to their account address.

Hyvä	Mobile

Configurable products. The form lists the options that are out of stock (for example "M, Blue"), also when the product itself is still in stock: "Option out of stock? We can email you when it is back." The shopper picks the option in the form.

Guest confirmation. With double opt-in, the guest sees a message that a confirmation link is on its way. The confirmation email is sent by cron within a minute. The link opens a page with a Confirm alert button.

Price drops. With price drop alerts on, in-stock products (simple, virtual, downloadable, configurable and bundle) show Email me if the price drops. The price at sign-up is the final price for the shopper's customer group and website from Magento's price index, so special prices and catalogue price rules count. For configurable and bundle products the "as low as" price is compared.

The alert email. When the product can be bought again, or the price falls below the price at sign-up, the shopper gets one email with the product image, name, chosen option, price (old and new for price drops) and a link to the product. The alert then ends.

Unsubscribe. Every alert email has an unsubscribe link and one-click unsubscribe headers (RFC 8058, Magento 2.4.8 and later). The page offers Stop this alert and Stop all alerts for the address, and Switch alerts back on. This list is separate from the newsletter and from other modules.

My Account > My Stock Alerts. Signed-in customers see their waiting alerts (with Remove) and the ones already emailed.

5. Admin pages

Alerts

Softaware > Back in Stock Alerts > Alerts lists every sign-up: ID, type (Back in stock or Price drop), product (linked, with SKU and option SKU), email, customer, store view, status, created and sent. Hidden columns: consent, confirmed, price at sign-up, source and note.

• Statuses: Not confirmed yet, Waiting, Sent, Stopped, Failed.
• Keyword search by email address, SKU or product name; filters on every column.
• Mass delete and CSV or Excel XML export.

Most Wanted Products

Softaware > Back in Stock Alerts > Most Wanted Products shows the products and options with the most people waiting, to help decide what to reorder: waiting for stock, not confirmed yet, waiting for a lower price, emailed in the last 30 days, waiting since and stock now. The "Waiting for Stock" number opens the alerts for that product. The report can be exported as CSV.

Product edit page

Each product has a Back in Stock Alerts (N waiting) section with the counts for the product and its options, and links to its alerts and to Most Wanted Products.

6. Cron jobs

Stock and prices are read from Magento's indexes. With indexers on "Update by Schedule", an alert is sent once the index has been updated, which is also when the storefront shows the product as in stock. Emails are only sent for products that are enabled and visible on the alert's website.

7. Command line

bin/magento softaware:back-in-stock:run [--limit=N] [--cleanup]
bin/magento softaware:back-in-stock:preview <alert id> [--email=stock|price|confirm] [-o file.html]
bin/magento softaware:back-in-stock:import-native [--type=stock|price|all] [--dry-run]

• run does what the cron jobs do, now. --cleanup also deletes unconfirmed and old alerts.
• preview renders an email for an existing alert without sending it or changing anything.
• import-native copies Magento's own alerts of existing customers (unsent stock alerts and price alerts) into this module. Alerts that exist already are skipped, so it can be run twice. Magento's tables are not changed.

8. Permissions (ACL)

Under System > Permissions > User Roles > Role Resources > Softaware > Back in Stock Alerts:

9. Privacy

• An alert stores the email address, product, option, store view, customer (if signed in), status, dates, price at sign-up for price alerts and the consent answer.
• IP addresses are only stored as a keyed hash, for the hourly limit.
• Customer alerts are deleted with the customer account; unconfirmed and old alerts are deleted by the clean-up job.
• Confirmation tokens are random, stored only as a hash, work once and expire. Unsubscribe links are signed.
• Customers can only see and remove their own alerts.

10. Troubleshooting

11. Uninstall

bin/magento module:disable Softaware_BackInStock
composer remove softaware/module-back-in-stock
bin/magento setup:upgrade

The tables softaware_back_in_stock_alert and softaware_back_in_stock_unsubscribe keep their data until you drop them. Magento's own product alerts were never changed, so they work again as before once the module is removed.