Alert rules
Decide how much stock has to return before anyone is told, and how many of the waiting list to alert at once.
Last updated July 27, 2026
Alerting everyone the instant one unit lands is how a waiting list turns into a complaint: fifty people race for three units, forty-seven reach a sold-out page from an email you just sent them. Two settings prevent that.
Wait until stock reaches
Hold the alert until at least this many units are back. One sends as soon as a single unit returns, which is right when your restocks are large. Raise it when they are small, so the email only goes out when there is enough to go round.
Alert at most
Alert only the first few people waiting. Zero alerts everyone. Otherwise the longest-waiting go first - a waiting list is a queue people joined in an order, and handing a small restock to a random subset is what merchants get complained at for. Whoever is not alerted keeps their place and is first in line next time.
What the shopper gets
The alert carries the product, the exact variant, the price, the image and a link straight to that variant - so the shopper lands on the size they were waiting for, already selected.
If they still don't buy
Optional, off by default: one follow-up a set number of hours after the alert - 48 is the usual choice - carrying a discount code. One, and then silence. A waiting list is not a newsletter, and a second nudge is where goodwill turns into a complaint.
The code is one you created yourself in Shopify's Discounts, pasted here. We never mint one for you: a code you made is one you can cap, limit and revoke in the place you already manage discounts, and creating them would need a permission every existing merchant would have to re-approve.