For e-commerce brands, it’s not the year of the dragon, it’s the year of the back-in-stock message. Automated back-in-stock message sends have been on a multiyear rise. In 2023, brands sent 4x as many as the year before, generating 3x the number of orders than the year before.

Back-in-stock messages perform exceptionally well compared to their email marketing counterparts. Their 60 percent open rate is higher than any other marketing email. The 19 percent click rate far outpaces the next best automation email, product abandonment, which has a 6.2 percent click rate. And when it comes to conversion rate, it’s not even close: back-in-stock messages see a conversion rate of 5.8 percent, more than double that of welcome messages, the second-best automated email.

Why do back-in-stock messages perform so well? They combine a consumer’s shopping desire with social proof and a fear of loss. It’s the same trifecta that works so well for shopping cart abandonment messages which highlight that the items left behind may sell out fast.

The difference is that with cart abandonment messages the shopper has yet to miss out on anything. Their products are still in their cart and they remain in control. With back-in-stock messages, the consumer feels timing pressure. After all, the items sold out once, and they likely will again.

Here are a few tips for e-commerce merchants looking to effectively use back-in-stock messages to increase sales:

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