/back-in-stock-notifications

Back in Stock Notifications - A free plugin for WooCommerce® that notifies customers when products they're interested in are back in stock

Primary LanguagePHPGNU General Public License v2.0GPL-2.0

Back In Stock Notifications for WooCommerce®

Automatically notify customers when products they're interested in are back in stock, and track demand for your most popular items. The plugin integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce® to capture customer interest and manage notifications efficiently.

Features

  • Automated Notifications: Sends customizable emails to customers when a product they signed up for is back in stock.
  • Demand Tracking: Track and display demand trends through waitlist statistics and analytics.
  • WooCommerce® Integration: Built for WooCommerce® to manage back-in-stock notifications.
  • Customizable Emails: Email templates for customer notifications can be customized to match your brand.
  • Dashboard Insights: Gain insights into product demand, customer interest, and track notification history within your WooCommerce® admin.
  • Automatic Updates: Receive updates through the WordPress® dashboard using PluginUpdateChecker.

Installation

Option 1: Install via WordPress® Dashboard (Recommended)

  1. Download the latest .zip file from the Releases section on GitHub.
  2. In your WordPress® Dashboard, navigate to Plugins > Add New.
  3. Click the Upload Plugin button at the top of the page.
  4. Select the .zip file you downloaded and click Install Now.
  5. Once installation is complete, click Activate Plugin.

Option 2: Install via SFTP

  1. Download the latest .zip file from the Releases section on GitHub.
  2. Unzip the file to create a folder named back-in-stock-notifications.
  3. Use an SFTP client (e.g., FileZilla, Cyberduck) to connect to your WordPress® server.
  4. Upload the back-in-stock-notifications folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
  5. Go to your WordPress® Dashboard, navigate to Plugins, and click Activate under _Back In Stock Notifications for WooCommerce®.

Requirements

  • WooCommerce® (must be active for the plugin to work)
  • WordPress® 5.0+
  • PHP 7.2+ (compatible with PHP 8.0+)

Configuration and Setup

Step 1: Enable WooCommerce® Compatibility

Ensure WooCommerce® is installed and activated before using this plugin. The plugin will automatically deactivate if WooCommerce® is not active.

Step 2: Configure the Plugin

Upon activation, the plugin creates the following custom database tables:

  • Waitlist: Tracks product waitlists by customer email.
  • Waitlist History: Records historical waitlist data.
  • Notifications: Stores sent notifications for back-in-stock alerts.

These tables are created and maintained automatically.

Step 3: Email Customization

The plugin includes customizable email templates located in:

  • templates/emails/back-in-stock-notification.php: HTML version of the back-in-stock email.
  • templates/emails/plain/back-in-stock-notification.php: Plain text version of the email.

You can further customize these templates by copying them to your theme folder under woocommerce/emails/ and editing them to match your brand style.

Usage

1. Adding Customers to the Waitlist

  • Customers can join a waitlist on a product's single page.
  • The waitlist form captures the customer's email, saving it to the waitlist database table.
  • The plugin enqueues JavaScript only on out-of-stock single product pages, optimizing performance.

2. Notifying Customers

When stock levels are updated (via WooCommerce®'s product update), the plugin will:

  • Check if the product's stock is now above zero.
  • Send a back-in-stock email notification to all users on that product's waitlist.
  • Log notifications and remove customers from the waitlist after notifying them.

3. Managing Waitlists and Analytics

Admins can access the Back In Stock submenu under WooCommerce®. The dashboard provides insights, including:

  • Most Wanted Products: Products with the highest waitlist counts.
  • Most Overdue Products: Products that have been out of stock the longest.
  • Most Signed-Up Products: Top products based on waitlist sign-ups over time.
  • Sign-Ups and Notifications: Daily and monthly sign-up and notification statistics are tracked, with values stored for easy access via a helper class.

4. CSV Exporting

Two CSV export options are available on the Back In Stock dashboard:

  • Export Emails: Exports all unique emails from the waitlist history table.
  • Export Data: Exports demand insights such as the most wanted, most overdue, and most signed-up products.

Helper Functionality

The plugin introduces a BISN_Data_Helper class to simplify database queries for various waitlist and notification statistics, such as:

  • get_most_wanted_products(): Retrieves the top 10 most wanted products based on waitlist count.
  • get_most_overdue_products(): Retrieves the top 10 products out of stock the longest.
  • get_signups_today(): Counts the sign-ups from today.
  • get_sent_today(): Counts notifications sent today.

The helper class enables efficient data retrieval for a streamlined and modular plugin structure.

Customizable Back In Stock Email

The BISN_Back_In_Stock_Email class controls the back-in-stock email notifications, which are sent when products are restocked. Emails are triggered by the bisn_send_back_in_stock_email action, providing seamless integration into WooCommerce's email management system.