Your best-selling products running out of stock is a big ordeal. You can lose sales and even receive negative feedback from waiting customers—both not good for your business. There are many ways to prevent this, but what should you do if it’s already too late?
Don’t panic! There are still many ways to get out of this nightmare. Here are the best strategies to fix that:
Step 1: Communicate with Your Supplier ASAP
The first thing to do is contact your product supplier. If your store is new and you haven’t worked with them for too long, you can ask them for updates and wait. Ask them about the expected date or timeline for the new stocks. Use this information to set customer expectations and make necessary adjustments.
On the other hand, if you have a long history of working with them, you have more options. Act before your products run out of stock. Once you get your inventory sheets from your supplier and see that your best-sellers are low on inventory, reach out to them. Ask if you can reserve the products for your store.
Of course, the number of products depends on your sales history. For instance, if your best-seller sells five times a week, you can reserve a number of them that can cover a few weeks. Negotiate a deposit so they’ll hold the items for you. This way, you can continue selling them even if the supplier runs out of available stock for a few weeks.
Step 2: Adjust Your Store & Ads to Prevent Wasted Ad Spend
Never allow customers to purchase out-of-stock products only to inform them of their unavailability afterward. This is how you get mad customers and bad reviews.
Once you see your products running out of stock, make the proper adjustments. Update your product pages with their stock status. Indicate how many stocks are left, if they’re out of stock, or will be back-ordered. Let them know how long they will have to wait for the item to be in stock again.
After that, go to your Google or Facebook ads. Make sure to remove or pause the ads for the out-of-stock products. This is because if people see their ads and order the products, they will likely ask for refunds once they know they’re out of stock. Don’t waste money on promoting products that won’t make you money.
Step 3: Offer Alternative Products to Save Your Sales
Save your sales by recommending alternative products to your customers. These must be in-stock products that are comparable to the out-of-stock products that they wanted to initially order. You can add "Frequently Bought Together" or “Customers Also Viewed” sections to the product pages with a preview or link to the product.
This way, when customers see that a product is back-ordered, they’ll have alternative options available. This can generate sales, especially if they really need something fast.
Step 4: Notify Your Customers & Offer Solutions
To entice people to buy the alternative products you offer, you can offer discounts. At the same time, make it a priority to notify customers as soon as the out-of-stock products are restocked. Set up email alerts for interested customers.
This way, they’ll be the first ones to know when they can start ordering the product again. You may also use incentives like discounts to convince them to pre-order the products. This allows you to capture and secure sales in advance and even increase customer loyalty within your market.
You can also analyze this data to gauge demand for those products. This will help you decide whether to reserve inventory in the future so you don’t run out of stock.
Step 5: Prevent Future Stock Issues
Prevention is always better than cure. Aside from reserving products, there are other ways to prevent these issues from happening. These include:
Conclusion
Remember, as dropshippers, we have no control over our inventory. But don’t panic when your best sellers run out of stock. To summarize, here are your quick fix steps:
Struggling with suppliers or inventory issues? Get the answers you need—join my free webinar! Or drop your questions below, and let’s talk it through.
