Notes from the shop floor

Why a product-level notify-me trains customers to ignore you, how variant-level back in stock alerts work on Shopify, and a five-minute test to check which one you actually have.

Restock alerts fail quietly, and you usually find out from a sales dip, not an error message. Here is a ten-minute self-test any merchant can run on any app to prove alerts actually fire and land before you rely on them.

Four real back in stock email templates for Shopify, from a basic restock alert to a win-back for something long out of stock, plus what makes a restock subject line actually get opened

A plain comparison of SMS and email restock alerts on Shopify: real open and conversion numbers, actual per-message SMS costs, opt-in law, and when each channel makes sense.

Three real routes for adding a notify-me button when a variant sells out: theme code, Shopify's native workarounds, and a purpose-built app block, plus what to check before you trust any of them.

Stocky's shutdown timeline, what breaks and when, the supplier data you need to export now, and an honest roundup of native, budget, and enterprise alternatives for small Shopify stores.

How demand decays after a restock, why batch pacing and send speed both matter, and how to audit your back in stock app's actual send latency, timestamp by timestamp.

A line-by-line pricing teardown of Swym, Appikon, Amp, STOQ, Notify!, and Kbite, plus what per-subscriber vs. per-send metering means for your actual monthly bill as your list grows.

The four reasons back in stock alerts go missing or don't help: bad webhooks, burst sends, no audit trail, and Markets mismatches. How to check your own app.

A practical walkthrough for moving a back in stock waitlist between Shopify apps: exporting your data, matching CSV columns, verifying the import, and timing the cutover around a restock.