Recipes · Updated Oct 15, 2026

Free Shopify Back-in-Stock Alert: Know the Moment a Sold-Out Item Returns

When a best seller comes back in stock, every hour you don't notice is lost sales: ads stay paused, and shoppers who asked never hear back.

Warning signs

How to fix it manually (free)

  1. After each supplier delivery, filter Products by inventory to find items that went from 0 to in stock.
  2. Restart any ads or collections you paused for those items.
  3. Email the customers who asked about the product (keep a simple list or tag them).
  4. If you want shoppers to sign up themselves on the product page, that's usually done with a back-in-stock app, since Shopify doesn't send those shopper emails on its own.

How to automate it with Shopify Flow

Back-in-Stock Alert uses free Shopify Flow. When a tracked, active product goes from sold out to in stock, it emails you right away and removes the out-of-stock tag. It emails you, not shoppers, so you decide who to tell and when.

Shopify Flow is a free Shopify app on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. Install takes about 5 minutes:

  1. Open the Shopify Flow app and click Import, then choose the downloaded .flow file.
  2. Click Edit, open the Send internal email step, and replace you@yourstore.com with your email. Click Save.
  3. Click Turn on workflow.

Back-in-Stock Alert

Emails you the moment a sold-out item is back, so you restart ads and tell waiting buyers. Tested in a live Shopify store. $19 one-time.

See the recipe →

FAQ

Is there a free back-in-stock alert for Shopify?

Yes for alerting yourself: Shopify Flow is free on Basic and up, and a Flow workflow can email you when stock returns. Emailing shoppers automatically usually needs an app.

Does it fire for draft products?

No. It ignores draft products and items that were already in stock.

Does it need inventory tracking?

Yes. Shopify must track quantity for the variant.

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