Back in Stock Email Examples: 7 That Recover Demand

Your waitlist is the warmest list you own. Most stores email it like a newsletter.

Here's the short answer. The back in stock email examples that recover the most demand share four traits: they go out the hour the product lands, the subject line names the exact product, the email shows the exact variant the buyer asked for, and the urgency is a real unit count instead of a fake timer. The buyer already chose the product. The email's only job is to get out of the way. Seven examples are below, plus the Klaviyo settings that decide who gets the first units.

A back in stock subscriber isn't a lead. It's a buyer who got turned away at the register and left you their number.

What makes a back in stock email convert?

The decision is already made. Abandoned cart argues against doubt. A restock email argues against nothing, because the person raised their hand for this exact product and waited.

That's why the published numbers run so hot. In Listrak's Q1 2016 data, back in stock alerts had a 47.6% open rate, the highest of the triggered emails it tracked, and a 26.3% conversion rate, against 37.2% opens and 9.3% conversion for welcome emails. A 2024 Total Retail article by an Omnisend e-commerce expert put back in stock conversion at 5.8%.

26.3% and 5.8%. Same email type.

Here's the thing. They measure different things in different years. I'd ignore both as targets and keep the lesson they agree on: this alert outperforms almost everything else you send. We pulled apart the same kind of spread in do back in stock alerts increase Shopify conversion rate.

So what kills it? Two things. Speed, and a mismatch between what they asked for and what the email shows.

How do you set up a back in stock flow in Klaviyo?

Four steps, straight from Klaviyo's back in stock flow guide:

1. Create a flow triggered by the Klaviyo metric Subscribed to Back in Stock.
2. Add a Back in stock delay directly after the trigger.
3. Add one email or text after the delay and turn Smart Sending off.
4. Set the flow live, then add the back in stock form or button to your store.

Klaviyo is blunt about the traps. "Do not add trigger or profile filters." No other time delays. And messages left in draft won't send. The explainer on how back in stock flows work adds one more: people only join the waiting list if the message is Live or Manual. Leave it in draft during a sellout and those signups never queue.

Smart Sending is the quiet killer. Leave it on and your most engaged customers can get skipped on the one email they asked for.

Two more. The back in stock settings are account-level, so a change hits every back in stock flow you run. And with Shopify POS plus an online store, Klaviyo counts your physical store's inventory too, so ten units on a retail shelf can fire an online alert your warehouse can't fill.

The 7 back in stock email examples

Every example below is a hypothetical draft written for this post, not a real brand's email. Swap in your product, your numbers, your voice.

#	Example	Best for	Urgency lever
1	The plain restock	Any single hero product	None needed
2	The "you waited" note	Long sellouts, 3 weeks or more	Their own signup date
3	The honest count	Small restocks	Real units available
4	The first batch	Waitlist bigger than the restock	Early access
5	The text	Fast sellers	Speed
6	The exact variant	Sizes and colors	Their size, named
7	The sold-out-again save	Restocks that vanish in hours	Pre-order date

1. The plain restock. One product photo. Price. One button. That's the whole email, and it's the one I'd send first on almost every store.

Subject: The 15 lb weighted blanket is back

You asked us to tell you. It's back in charcoal and sand, $129, shipping today.

[Get yours]

2. The "you waited" note. For a sellout of three weeks or longer, acknowledge the wait. People who signed up a month ago half forgot why.

Subject: Five weeks later, your linen duvet cover is here

You joined the list on September 19. Thanks for waiting this long for a duvet cover. The oat color is back, and it's the same $148.

3. The honest count. If 212 units came back, say 212. A real number is urgency you don't have to fake. A countdown timer that resets every visit is the opposite, and buyers can tell. The line between the two is in does product scarcity increase Shopify conversion rate.

Subject: 212 came back. Here's yours.

The last batch of our percale sheets sold out in 9 days. This one is 212 sets, and the waitlist is longer than that.

4. The first batch. When the waitlist is bigger than the restock, don't email everyone at once (the setting is in the next section). The email tells the truth: you're in the first group.

Subject: You're in the first group for the cold brew kit

We restocked fewer kits than we have names on the list. You're early. The rest of the list hears tomorrow.

5. The text. Klaviyo's guide to SMS in back in stock flows has you add a conditional split right after the delay: people who can receive texts get the text, everyone else stays on the email path. Only current SMS subscribers get the text, so never drop the email. Keep it to one line and a link. The tradeoffs between the two channels are in Klaviyo SMS vs email.

Back: the 15 lb weighted blanket in charcoal. $129. Yours here: [link] Reply STOP to opt out

6. The exact variant. The fastest way to lose a restock click is showing a size M buyer the size L. Name the variant in the subject and preselect it behind the button.

Subject: Your size 9 trail runner is back

Size 9 in slate just landed. The button below opens it with your size already picked.

7. The sold-out-again save. The product vanished in four hours and 300 people are still waiting. Send this as a manual campaign, not a flow step (the reason is below), and offer the next batch as a pre-order with a real ship date. Your pre-order product page has to carry the date and the charge timing too.

Subject: It sold out again in 4 hours. Want the next one?

We'll ship the next batch November 18. Reserve yours now and you're first in line.

The urgency in a restock email should be a fact you can count. If you can't count it, cut it.

Should you notify the whole waitlist at once?

Only if the restock is bigger than the list. Klaviyo's default notifies all subscribers at once. Under Advanced options, three settings change that:

• Restock minimum: how many units must be in stock before anyone is notified.
• Subscribers to notify per restock item: batch size, set per unit in stock.
• Notification frequency per restock item: how long Klaviyo waits between batches, in hours or days.

Batches keep going until stock falls below your restock minimum. Klaviyo's own example uses a minimum of 9, 2 subscribers per item and 1 hour between batches.

Run the math on a store like this, a hypothetical. 1,200 people wait for a $129 weighted blanket. 150 come back. Email all 1,200 at once and the fastest 150 win while 1,050 click into a sold-out page. Batch it at 2 subscribers per unit and the first wave is 300 people, and anyone left over gets example 7 instead of a dead end.

Now watch what happens when the alert is slow. Same 1,200 people. Same $129 blanket.

Alert the same day $18,576

Alert three days late $9,288

$129 blanket, 1,200 signups. Illustrative rates, not a benchmark: 12% buy when the alert goes out the day of the restock, 6% when it goes out three days late.

At 12%, that's 144 orders and $18,576. At 6%, it's 72 orders and $9,288. The rates are illustrative. The direction isn't. Every day the email waits, the buyer finds it elsewhere or stops wanting it.

Should you send a second back in stock email?

Usually not from the flow. Klaviyo says flows usually need one message and recommends 1 to 3 at most. Then its own help center adds the line that should stop you: it's "not possible to check if the item is still in stock before sending a second message."

Say you set a follow-up for day 3. The product sells out on day 1. On day 3 Klaviyo still sends "Don't miss it" to everyone who didn't buy, and they click straight into a sold-out page.

I'd rather send one fast alert and handle the rest by hand. Stock left on day 3? Send a campaign to people who opened and didn't buy. None left? Send example 7. Abandoned cart can carry three emails because the product sits there waiting, as in our abandoned cart flow examples. A restock can't.

Can AI write your back in stock flow?

It can draft it. Klaviyo's Composer help page says it can "draft a whole flow and the email, push, SMS, and MMS messages inside it from a simple prompt." It's labeled beta, it never sets a flow live on its own, and Klaviyo warns generated content "can occasionally be wrong."

So give it your rules: one alert, Smart Sending off, SMS split after the delay, product name in the subject, no discount. Then check every variant by hand. A restock email that names the wrong color is worse than no email. More in our Klaviyo Composer review.

Where does the restock click land?

On a product page. And the page decides whether a hand-raiser buys one item or a bigger order.

Bedding sells out constantly, so here's the real one. Our client's Cooling Bamboo Sheets page ran at a conversion rate of 1.0% with a $125 average order value. That means revenue per visitor was $1.25, or $12,500 on 10,000 visitors. After the rebuild, conversion rate 4.3%, average order value $254. Revenue per visitor $10.92. On the same 10,000 visitors, that's $109,200. See the full case study numbers. Real client numbers, not typical results, and not a promise of what your store will do.

Land a perfect restock email on a spec sheet and you're amplifying a leak. Land it on a page that sells and you're amplifying a machine.

The other flows that feed that page are in the Klaviyo flows for Shopify guide. And Klaviyo's October 2026 benchmark report, covered in our Klaviyo benchmarks post, has no back in stock row at all, so your own restock numbers are the only benchmark you'll get.

What to do next

Open your back in stock flow tonight and check three things: Smart Sending is off, the message is Live, and the restock minimum isn't zero. Then write example 7 now, before the next sellout, so it's sitting in drafts the day your product disappears in four hours.

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P.S. The buyer on your waitlist already said yes. A slow alert and a weak page are the only ways to make them say no.