Are you selling out quicker than expected? Our guide explains how to manage out-of-stock WooCommerce products by recommending product alternatives using a free plugin.
While selling quicker is a positive sign with regard to profits, it can quickly become a missed opportunity. Imagine a shopper who lands on your eCommerce website looking for a product and finds that the one they want is out-of-stock. They would be frustrated, leave, and never likely return.
In fact, studies reveal that 43% of consumers are likely to abandon a product after experiencing two or more stock-outs.
So, how can you turn this challenge into an opportunity? By offering relevant alternate product recommendations, you can keep shoppers engaged and even convert them into loyal customers.
Key Takeaways
- Leverage alternate product recommendations to retain abandoning shoppers.
- Step-by-step instructions for suggesting relevant product recommendations in WooCommerce.
- Learn how to hide out-of-stock products in WooCommerce using the default option.
- Recommending product alternatives saves lost sales and improves your overall conversion rates.
Let’s get started!
How does WooCommerce inventory management work?
(If enabled) WooCommerce inventory management lets you easily track stock by entering quantities for each product. It automatically updates inventory after every order and notifies you when stock is low or out. When this happens, you update the stock quantity on the product page.
An out-of-stock situation is one that troubles a lot of retailers. It can result in lost revenue, especially when customers are ready to purchase. More critically, stock-outs disrupt the shopping experience. This frustration can lead to customer loss, reduced loyalty, and fewer customer returns. Ultimately, missing out on potential customers damages your brand, worse than the revenue loss.
The two most popular ways of managing out-of-stock products are providing alternative product recommendations and hiding stock-outs from the product catalog temporarily until re-stocked. Let’s examine each of them in detail.
How Product Recommendations work in WooCommerce?
Product recommendation systems or WooCommerce alternatives make shopping more intuitive for your customers. When you recommend alternatives for out-of-stock products, the system considers factors like customer preferences, browsing behavior and product similarities to suggest the next best options.
Suppose a customer is viewing a product that’s currently unavailable; the system auto-recommends items with similar features, pricing, or popularity. These suggestions help redirect customers to product alternatives without leaving your store.
This is why we recommend store owners invest in a good WooCommerce recommendations engine.
When customers can’t find their desired product, they often seek alternatives. They might look for a similar brand, choose a different brand, or even delay their purchase until the item is restocked. Recommending product alternatives can prevent lost sales and keep customers engaged.
Now, let’s see how to recommend related products in WooCommerce with and without a plugin.
1- Redirecting Customers to Similar Products (Built-in)
By default, WooCommerce displays related products based on similar categories or tags. It also allows for the configuration of upsells and cross-sells. Related products are sorted randomly, whereas upsells and cross-sells must be configured manually, both being user-defined.
To offer upsells and cross-sell recommendations in WooCommerce,
- Go to WooCommerce > Products and select the specific product you want to add an upsell or cross-sell.
- Go to the Product Data panel and select the Linked Products tab.
- You can add the product you wish to link in the corresponding fields by searching for it.
- Click on Update to save changes.
Let’s see how it appears on the product page.
Why you should not use the built-in WooCommerce recommendation system?
- Offers no personalized suggestions
- Displays generic recommendations
- Requires manual setup
- Ignores seasonality and trend factors
A third-party product recommendation plugin can easily address these issues. To help you get started, we’ll use the free Related Products for WooCommerce plugin from WebToffee.
2- Automatically Show Related Products During WooCommerce Stock-Outs (Using Free Plugin)
With the related products plugin, you can show related product recommendations in two ways: either you can create custom related products or create using the default WooCommerce option but with limited customization options.
Here, we will be solely discussing suggesting product alternatives using the custom recommendation settings. For a much more detailed guide on how to show similar products using the plugin, refer to our article.
In order to custom-create related products, follow these steps:
I: Install and activate the WebToffee Related Products Plugin
- Search for the WebToffee related products plugin in the WordPress repository.
- Install and activate the plugin to access the features for recommending alternative products when WooCommerce items are out-of-stock.
II: Configuring WooCommerce Related Products Recommendation Widget
- Go to WooCommerce > Related Products. Here, you can manage all the related product settings that will help you recommend relevant product alternatives to your customers.
- Within the settings, select the Custom related products option. This opens up various related product customization settings to help you tailor how related products are presented on your store.
- Give a title for the related product widget in the Related Products title.
III: Setting Product Alternatives Using the Related Products
- Next, you can decide how the related products are selected by choosing from options like Same category, Same tag, or a combination of both under the Display related products from section. You can even override this selection and create custom related products for individual items using this plugin.
- Next, if there are certain product(s) or category(s) for which you don’t want related products to appear, specify them in the Hide related products for categories and Hide related products for products options.
- You can then sort the related products using the Sort by option. Multiple sorting options are available including pricing, popularity, and date. You can also arrange them in ascending or descending order in the Sort order option.
- Enable Slider if you want to display the related products in a slider format. Configure the appearing slider settings to your liking.
- Next, tweak any remaining settings to perfect your related product display. Do not forget to enable the Override theme’s template option. This setting replaces the default WooCommerce related products widget with your custom setup.
- After configuring everything, make sure to click on Save changes to apply your new related product settings.
IV: Preview of Related Product Recommendations During Stock-outs
Why choose the Related Products plugin instead?
- Personalizes product recommendations
- Replaces default recommendations with more relevant options
- Allows custom creation of related product suggestions
- Disables recommendations for specific categories or products
- Excludes out-of-stock items from recommendations
- Displays related products using shortcodes on custom pages
- Highlights related products on the cart page
When customers encounter an out-of-stock item, one strategy is to recommend similar products to keep them engaged. Another approach is to hide out-of-stock products entirely from their browsing experience.
For a detailed guide on using the advanced settings of the Related Products plugin, refer to our setup guide here.
Keeping your WooCommerce store up-to-date involves managing product visibility. You can easily hide out-of-stock items through your WooCommerce dashboard. This ensures only available products are displayed, creating a smoother shopping experience. And as a bonus, you get to maintain a cleaner store layout and avoid disappointing customers.
To ensure your customers only see items available for purchase, you can easily hide out-of-stock products from your WooCommerce store. Follow these steps:
- Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings
- In the Settings window, go to the Products tab
- Within the Products tab, locate the Inventory section. Here, you will find options related to stock management and display.
- Enable Hide out-of-stock items from the catalog. This setting will prevent out-of-stock items from appearing in your store’s product listings.
- Click on Save Changes.
Besides these settings, you can unlock additional features by enabling the Manage stock option. This includes setting up stock-holding intervals, receiving stock-out or low-stock notifications, and more. Configure these options according to your specific requirements to smoothen your inventory management.
Best Practices for Managing Out-Of-Stock Products
- Regularly monitor inventory levels to avoid unexpected stock-outs
- Set up alerts to get notified when stock is low
- Offering alternative products to keep customers engaged
- Mark out-of-stock items or hide it
- Provide restock dates when possible
- Automate back-in-stock notifications to recapture potential sales
- Enable backorders or pre-orders for stock-out products
- Communicate with customers about stock-outs to maintan customer satisfaction and trust.
If you’re searching for an advanced product recommendation tool, the WebToffee’s WooCommerce Product Recommendations plugin is an excellent choice. The plugin comes with various built-in templates for recommendations like Frequently Bought Together, New Arrivals, Recently Viewed, Bestsellers, and so much more.
Besides these recommendations widgets, you also have the option to create custom WooCommerce product recommendations from scratch. The features offer granular control over how products are suggested in your store.
Ultimately, it pays off to manage out-of-stock products well so that they help you maintain a smooth customer experience and uphold your brand reputation. By offering alternative product suggestions or hiding the out of stock items, you minimize lost sales and keep your customers engaged.
Plus, offering relevant product alternatives will help customers see more of what you have in store for them and complete their purchase.
Implementing these strategies with the help of the Related Products for WooCommerce plugin will make your inventory management much easier while simultaneously ensuring customers are satisfied.
That’s a wrap! I hope you found this article helpful. If you did, let me know in the comments below. Feel free to ask any questions, and stay tuned for more updates.
Frequently Asked Questions on WooCommerce Stock-Outs
When an item is out of stock, you can hide it from the product catalog to avoid customer disappointment. However, a more effective approach is to inform customers that the item is unavailable, recommend similar stock alternatives to encourage purchases and allow them to sign up for restock alerts.
Use email templates to communicate with customers, starting with an apology for the inconvenience. If the product was already in their checkout, consider offering a gift voucher or discounts as compensation.
To hide out of stock products in WooCommerce:
– Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings
– Click on the Products tab in the Settings window
– Locate the Inventory section within the Products tab
– Enable the option Hide out-of-stock items from the catalog
– Click Save Changes to apply the settings.
