Looking for the best way to create a waitlist in WooCommerce?
If you want to notify shoppers when an out-of-stock or backordered product becomes available, an email waitlist is a great strategy to implement.
Potential shoppers can add their names to the waitlist for specific products and then receive an email as soon as the product is actually available to purchase. This can help you immediately drive sales to those products, while also creating a better experience for your customers.
While WooCommerce doesn’t include a built-in email waitlist feature, you can easily add one using a plugin.
In this post, you’ll learn step-by-step how to create a WooCommerce email waitlist like the example below using the Merchant plugin.
When a product comes back in stock, the plugin can automatically email all the people who subscribed to that product. Or, you can disable automatic email sending and manually trigger emails from a dedicated interface.
Here are some more details about the other features in the waitlist functionality that the Merchant plugin offers:
- Full customization of all the text on the waitlist form.
- Full customization of all the email content.
- Send two emails – one confirmation email that sends immediately when someone subscribes to the waitlist and another when the product is back in stock.
- Waitlist management interface to see all subscribers and which products they’ve subscribed to. You can also manually send emails from this interface if you disable automatic email sending.
- Built-in support for popular SMTP plugins to improve email deliverability.
I’ll start with a quick introduction to the Merchant plugin and then we’ll get into the actual tutorial.
A Quick Introduction to the Merchant Plugin
As I described in the introduction, the Merchant plugin lets you add a flexible product waitlist feature to your store. Shoppers can join the waitlist for specific products and then you can automatically or manually send an email when those products are back in stock.
However, Merchant is not just a WooCommerce waitlist plugin. It’s actually a modular toolkit of 47+ different features and enhancements that you can use to improve your store’s shopping experience and boost your revenue.
All of these features are 100% modular. You can choose exactly which features to activate on your store and Merchant will only load those specific features. This lets you keep your store lightweight and loading quickly while still giving you access to lots of functionality.
Some of the most notable modules include product bundles, frequently bought together products, bulk discounts, “Buy X, Get Y” deals, storewide sales, live product search, Shopify-style side cart, improved product reviews, upsell popups, and more.
You can check out all 47+ modules in the plugin by clicking here.
While it’s totally fine to just use Merchant to add a waitlist to your store, you’ll probably find some other features that can improve your store.
How to Create a WooCommerce Waitlist With Merchant
Now, let’s get into the actual step-by-step guide on how to create a WooCommerce product waitlist using the Merchant plugin…
1. Purchase, Install, and Activate Merchant Pro
To get started, you need to install the core Merchant plugin, along with Merchant Pro.
While the core version of Merchant is available for free at WordPress.org, you’ll need Merchant Pro to access the Waitlist module.
You can purchase Merchant Pro here – licenses start at just $79 and give you access to all 47+ modules, which means you also get a lot of added value beyond the waitlist functionality.
After making your purchase, install both the free version of Merchant at WordPress.org and Merchant Pro.
I also recommend adding your license key to Merchant Pro so that you can more easily receive and apply updates. You can do this by going to Merchant → Settings in your WordPress dashboard and using the License Activation box.
2. Enable the Waitlist Module
As I mentioned earlier, Merchant uses a 100% modular approach, which means that it maintains a small footprint by only activating the specific features that you want to use on your store.
To activate the module, go to Merchant → Dashboard. Then, click on the Waitlist module, which should be listed under Boost Revenue.
On the next screen, click the blue Enable button at the top of the Waitlist module settings area.
3. Customize WooCommerce Waitlist Form Settings
Now, you can use the options in the Waitlist module settings to customize the waitlist form. This is the form that will appear on the single product page for out-of-stock products.
First, you can use the Display on backorders? toggle to choose whether to also display the form on backordered products in addition to out-of-stock products.
Below that, you can use the text boxes to customize all of the content in your waitlist subscribe form, including the following:
- Title
- Email field label
- Form button text (the CTA)
- Success message that appears after the user submits the form
- Unsubscribe message that appears if the person unsubscribes from updates
Finally, you can use the Exclude products box to manually exclude certain products from displaying the waitlist form.
By default, the form will display on every single out-of-stock product on your store (along with backordered products, if you enable that toggle).
However, you might have certain out-of-stock products that you don’t wait to let people join a waitlist for, such as a product that you’re planning to permanently discontinue. With this setting, you can exclude those products to avoid any potential confusion for your customers.
4. Customize WooCommerce Waitlist Email Settings
In addition to customizing the waitlist form that appears on single product pages, you can also customize the content of the emails that will be sent to customers.
The plugin sends two different emails:
- New Subscriber email – this email is sent to people immediately after they sign up for the waitlist. You can use it to confirm their subscription and provide more information about the process.
- Back in stock update – this email will be sent to customers when the product they signed up for is back in stock again.
To customize email behavior, scroll down to the Email Settings box in the Waitlist module settings.
First, you can use the Send emails automatically toggle to choose how/when to send the back-in-stock update email:
- When enabled, Merchant will automatically send the email as soon as the product comes back in stock.
- When disabled, you need to manually send the email to subscribers. You might use this option if you want a little more control over when you promote the products that are available. We’ll cover how to manually send emails later in this guide.
Below that, you can use the boxes to customize the content of each email, including using the
{product}
tag to dynamically insert the actual name of the specific product that the person subscribed to.
You can also click the preview link to see an example of what the email might look like.
The plugin will automatically use the same email styling template that the rest of your WooCommerce emails use, which lets you ensure consistency with your other emails.
If you want to customize this template for all of your WooCommerce emails, you can do so by going to WooCommerce → Settings → Emails and using the Email template options at the bottom.
Once you’ve finished customizing the emails, make sure to click the Save button on the toolbar in the Merchant Waitlist module settings.
5. Manually Adjust Waitlist Form Placement (Optional)
By default, Merchant will place the waitlist form in the exact same spot where the add to cart button would appear if the product were in stock.
For example, here’s a product that is in stock:
If I mark the product as out of stock, you can see how the waitlist form replaces the add to cart button using the module’s automatic placement:
For most stores, this is probably the optimal position, which is why Merchant uses this approach.
However, if you’re using a WordPress page builder or theme that supports using shortcodes to control the WooCommerce single product page template, you can also manually place the waitlist form using a shortcode.
This is 100% optional. You do not need to do anything if you’re happy with the default automatic placement of the waitlist form.
If you do want to manually place the form using a shortcode, you should first enable the Use shortcode toggle at the bottom of the Waitlist module settings.
Then, you can use the
[merchant_module_wait_list]
shortcode to manually place the form.
6. Test the WooCommerce Waitlist Functionality
At this point, the waitlist functionality should be active on your store.
To make sure it’s functioning exactly as you want it to, I recommend opening an out-of-stock product to test the functionality.
Again, you will only see the form for products that are marked as out of stock in the WooCommerce settings (or backordered, if you enable that option).
If you submit that form, you should receive an email notification right away.
Merchant will send the email using whatever method your WordPress site is configured to use. For improved email reliability, I recommend using an SMTP plugin and a dedicated email sending service.
You might have already set up an email sending service to improve the reliability of your other WooCommerce emails, in which case Merchant’s emails will use that same method. But if you haven’t, Post SMTP is a good plugin and SendGrid offers a forever-free tier for sending emails.
If you update the product to be in stock again, you should automatically receive an email if you enabled automatic email sending.
If you disabled automatic email sending, you will need to manually send the emails.
Here’s how to manually send emails:
- Navigate to Products → Waitlist Subscribers in your WordPress dashboard.
- Use the checkboxes to select the subscribers to which you want to send an email.
- Select Send Email under the bulk actions drop-down.
- Click Apply.
After the email has been sent, you’ll see the Status column update to reflect that.
Create Your WooCommerce Out-Of-Stock Waitlist Today
If it’s normal for your store to have out-of-stock or backordered products, offering a waitlist is a great way to improve customers’ shopping experiences and boost sales when those products are available to purchase.
With the Merchant Pro plugin, you can easily add waitlist functionality to your store and choose between automatically or manually emailing customers when a product is back in stock.
Plus, in addition to the Waitlist module, you also get access to 46+ other features that you can use to improve your store and boost revenue. Because of Merchant’s modular approach, it will only load the specific features that you activate, which means you don’t need to worry about adding weight to your store for features that you’re not actively using.
If you’re ready to get started, purchase your Merchant Pro license today.
