1.0 Introduction
Online shoppers get disappointed when the product they are looking to purchase is out-of-stock. This majorly happens during the launch of a smartphone when it gets out of stock even before the user has added it to his cart. Furthermore, if the shopper is not notified, when the product comes back in stock, the store owner can lose that sale. Hence, this problem can be solved with the help of the simple Back in Stock notification with the OpenCart Back in Stock Extension by Knowband.
1.0.1 What is Back in Stock notification?
A back-in-stock notification is an email that is sent to those users who have subscribed to receive updates regarding an out-of-stock product. When the product is back-in-stock, the shoppers are informed via email about its availability so that they can purchase it as soon as possible or before it goes out of stock again.
Many of the users can miss out on the purchase if they aren’t notified and this eventually leads to some lost revenue.
The sole purpose of the back-in-stock email is to boost your sales. Besides, it helps you drive huge traffic to your website, encourages customer retention, helps you understand the touchpoint of your customers, and builds a strong connection between the brand and the consumers.
To save these missed out sales and make the shopper buy the product when it comes back in stock, You need to mail every shopper which will take a lot of time and effort.
Hereby, the OpenCart Back in Stock Extension will simplify this for you. This module allows the Admin to view all the customers who have subscribed to the product and can send the back-in-stock email accordingly. The admin can also create, edit or use the default email template for notification. The Admin can also choose to whether send a Low Stock Alert email or not via this module.
1.0.2 How does it work?
The working of the OpenCart Back in Stock module is explained by the following points.
- If the shopper visits a product page where the product is out of stock, The user will be shown a Back in the Stock box where the user can add his/her email id to get subscribed to that product.
- Once a product is subscribed it will be shown to the Admin, Where The Admin can see who and which product has subscribed and whether the email is sent to them or not.
- Admin can manually run or schedule the cron file to send the Back in Stock email. The cron file will automatically send the email to the users who have subscribed to the product. It will also check whether the email is not sent to the user already to prevent spam.
- If the Admin has enabled the Low Stock Alert functionality, Then Admin can also send the Low Stock alerts via Cron file using a similar process.
1.0.3 Salient Features of the OpenCart Back in Stock extension
- The online merchant can use this OpenCart Back in Stock module for sending email notifications of the product back in stock to those users who subscribed for the same.
- Admin can enable privacy policy settings and apply the related configurations from the admin interface of this OpenCart Back in Stock module.
- In OpenCart Back in Stock module, the online users have an option to view the subscribed products list.
- The online merchant can also send low stock alert notifications to the subscribers for the subscribed products.
- OpenCart Back in Stock module allows adjusting the color of the notification box as well as the background color of the heading using the color picker tool.
- Admin can also enter the custom CSS and JS code for the advanced look and feel management.
- The Admin can integrate Mailchimp, Constant Contact email integrator for creating a list of customers for email marketing activities in the future.
- The store admin can view a list of highly demanded products from the dashboard section.
- The Admin can download the subscriber list in CSV format from the subscriptions tab of the Back In Stock Module.
- The OpenCart Back in Stock module offers multi-store and multi-lingual support.
- OpenCart Back in Stock module Admin can share subscribed products, in stock, and low stock updates via email. The Admin can easily customize the subject and body of the emails.
2.0 Installation Guide
Once purchased, you will receive the following files in your registered email.
- Source code of OpenCart Back in Stock module in zipped file format.
- User Manual of OpenCart Back in Stock module.
Now to install this on your OpenCart Store, follow the given steps:
- Unzip the zip file. You will get the folders as shown in the image below
- Now choose the OpenCart version according to your store and open that specific OC folder. After opening it you will see the following content.
- Copy and paste the content inside the upload folder inside your Opencart store folder.
- Go to Extensions and then Installer. From here, you can upload the ” kbback_in_stock.ocmod.zip” (for OC3.0.x) file and install the extension.
So, Opencart Back in Stock Extension is now successfully installed and is ready to use at your store. Go to the admin menu and click on the extensions. Choose the Extension Type as Modules. You will find a list of modules. Select the Knowband Back in Stock.
3.0 Admin Interface
The Admin Interface of OpenCart Back in Stock extension includes the following main settings:
- Dashboard
- Settings
- Subscriptions
3.0.1 Dashboard
This tab is used to display different types of graphs which can be used to analyze which products are most subscribed, past week subscription, etc.
3.0.2 Settings
This tab consists of all the module configurationally settings.
3.0.2.1 General Settings
- Enable/Disable: Initially, this field of OpenCart back in the stock module by Knowband will be “OFF”. Admin can enable/disable the Opencart module by turning ON/OFF in this setting.
- Privacy Policy: Enable this toggle button to display the privacy policy option at the front end. The Privacy Policy will be shown at Notify Me block.
- Privacy Policy Text: The admin can enter the desired text for a privacy policy. The text can be changed whenever needed.
- Privacy Policy Page URL: The admin can easily set his choice of URL to the privacy policy.
- Background Color: Initially, this field of our module will be filled with some default values. Admin can change the background color of the subscription box by picking the color from the color picker that will be reflected on the front end of the OpenCart back in the stock notification module.
- Border Color: Using this option of the OpenCart back in stock notification module, the admin can set the border color of the subscribed box using the color picker.
- Text Color: This field of OpenCart back in the stock module allows the admin to change the text color of the notify box.
- Heading Background Color: This field of OpenCart Back in Stock Extension allows the admin to change the Heading background color of the notify box.
- Custom CSS: This option of the OpenCart stock alert module allows the admin to write their CSS as per requirement and will be reflected in the front end of this OpenCart module.
- Custom JS: This field of OpenCart Back in Stock Extension allows the admin to write their JavaScript as required.
3.0.2.2 Initial Email Settings
In this tab, you can configure custom subject and content for the initial email which will be sent to the user for subscription confirmation.
3.0.2.2 Final Email Settings
In this tab, you can configure custom subject and content for the final email which will be sent to the user when the product comes back in stock.
3.0.2.2 Low Stock Email Settings
In this tab, you can configure enable/disable the low stock alert functionality. You can also configure the custom subject and content for the low stock alert email which will be sent to the user when the product goes low in stock than the specified quantity.
3.0.2.3 Email Marketing Settings
To enable/disable the Mailchimp/Constant Contact functionality this tab is used.
3.0.3 Subscription
This tab contains the list of all the subscriptions and It also contains a button that is used to download the CSV file for the subscriptions.
3.0.4 Useful Cron Instructions
3.0.4.1 Reasons/Cases when the email is not sent to the customers
- Low Stock Alert not sent.
- Check the product quantity if an email is not sent for a particular product, The product might still be out of stock (quantity = 0).
- If you have not set up the Cron properly or if the Cron is not working.
3.0.4.2 Types of Crons
Two types of cron can run according to Admin con settings.
- Cron to send Back in the Stock email: This is used to send the back in stock emails to all the customers in the list of the subscription if they did have already sent them back in stock for the same product.
- Cron to send the low stock email: This cron will send the low stock alert email if it is enabled from the settings tab. It will check the quantity of the product is lower than the specified quantity in the module settings and If the back-in-stock mail is already sent to the customer then it will send low stock alert mail.
3.0.4.3 Procedure to configure CRON job
What is a cron?
A cron is a service that allows a user to automatically execute a script at a specific time.
For example, you can set a particular PHP script to be automatically executed every day at midnight.
Add the cron to your store via control panel/putty to send reminder mail automatically.
Example URLs to Add the Cron via Control Panel
https://octest.knowband.com/test2.3_1/index.php?route=kbback_in_stock/cron/backStock
https://octest.knowband.com/test2.3_1/index.php?route=kbback_in_stock/cron/lowStock
Cron setup via SSH
10 * * * * wget -O /dev/null https://octest.knowband.com/test2.3_1/index.php?route=kbback_in_stock/cron/backStock
5 * * * * wget -O /dev/null https://octest.knowband.com/test2.3_1/index.php?route=kbback_in_stock/cron/lowStock
4.0 User Interface
4.1
The online users can view an out-of-stock product notification box on the product pages which are out of stock and they can share email id for notification. The subscription block of the OpenCart Back in Stock module would appear as follows:
4.2
When the customer enters the email id and clicks on the button notify me the initial mail is sent to the entered email address and the message showing subscribed.
4.3
OpenCart Back in stock module will prevent the customer from subscribing to the same product twice. It will display an “already subscribed” message on the front end of the store.
4.4
The users can get an email notification when the product is available in stock.
4.5
They can also view a low stock alert email for the subscribed product in the case of running stocks.
In case of any issue, drop an email to support@knowband.com OR click here to raise the ticket.
Buy OpenCart Back in Stock Extension: https://www.knowband.com/opencart-back-in-stock-notification
Admin Demo: https://opencartdemo.knowband.com/3.0/backinstock/admin/
Front Demo: https://opencartdemo.knowband.com/3.0/backinstock/