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★ Asteris Docs

Back in Stock

What it does

Back in Stock adds a small email-capture form to the single-product page whenever a WooCommerce product is out of stock. Customers leave their email address, the plugin stores them as a private custom post type (asteris_bis_sub), and the moment WooCommerce reports stock as available again the module dispatches a plain-text notification email through wp_mail() and flips that subscriber’s status to notified.

The module supports simple, external, and grouped products (form shows only when the product is out of stock) and variable products (the form is rendered hidden and revealed by JavaScript when an out-of-stock variation is selected). Restock detection hooks both woocommerce_product_set_stock and woocommerce_product_set_stock_status (plus the matching variation hooks), so changes made through the WooCommerce admin, REST API, or a stock-import plugin all trigger notifications.

It replaces WooCommerce Waitlist ($79/yr) and YITH Waiting List ($79/yr).

Quick start

  1. Activate Back in Stock in WooCommerce → Asteris (the module list).
  2. Open WooCommerce → Asteris → Back in Stock to set form heading, button text, success message, and the notification email subject and body.
  3. Optionally set a custom From name and From email — leave blank to use the site name and the WordPress admin email.
  4. Edit any product, set its stock status to Out of stock, then view the product on the front-end. The capture form will render below the price.
  5. Subscribe a test email, then change the product back to In stock and save. The subscriber should receive a notification within the same request cycle.
  6. Review subscribers any time at WooCommerce → Back-in-Stock (a CPT admin screen with status, email, product, and notified-at columns).

Settings reference

All options live under the asteris_back_in_stock_* option namespace and are sanitised on save.

SettingWhat it doesDefaultValid values
Form headingHeading rendered above the capture form on the product page”Email me when back in stock”Plain text
Button textLabel on the submit button”Notify me”Plain text
Success messageMessage shown after a successful subscription”Got it — we’ll email you the moment this is back.”Plain text
Notification email subjectSubject line of the restock email; supports {product}, {url}, {site_name} placeholders”Good news! “{product}” is back in stock”Plain text
Notification email bodyBody of the restock email; supports {product}, {url}, {site_name} placeholdersMulti-line default with the three placeholdersPlain text / multi-line
From nameOverride for the email From nameEmpty (falls back to site name)Plain text
From emailOverride for the email From addressEmpty (falls back to WordPress admin email)Valid email

Common workflows

Capturing demand on a sold-out product

  1. Confirm the product’s stock status is Out of stock (manage-stock enabled with quantity 0, or stock status set manually).
  2. The form is appended to the product summary at priority 35 of woocommerce_single_product_summary.
  3. Customer enters an email and submits; the AJAX handler asteris_bis_sub validates the nonce, dedupes against existing pending subscribers for the same product/variation/email combination, and inserts a new asteris_bis_sub post on success.
  4. The customer sees the configured success message. Bots that fill the honeypot field receive a silent success.

Notifying subscribers when stock returns

  1. Set the product back to In stock (manually, via a stock-import, or via the WooCommerce REST API).
  2. WooCommerce fires woocommerce_product_set_stock_status (and/or woocommerce_product_set_stock); the module checks is_in_stock() is true.
  3. The module queries all pending subscribers for that product (and exact variation, if applicable) and sends each one a single email via wp_mail().
  4. On a successful send, the subscriber’s status flips to notified and _abis_notified_at records the timestamp. Failed sends remain pending and will retry on the next stock-change event.

Handling variable products

  1. Variable products always render the form (hidden) on the product page so the JavaScript can swap variation IDs without a page reload.
  2. When a customer selects an out-of-stock variation, the bundled script.js reveals the form and populates the hidden variation_id field.
  3. Subscriptions are scoped to the exact variation — a customer who wants the red Small does not get notified about the blue Large.

Reviewing demand to inform purchasing

  1. Open WooCommerce → Asteris → Back in Stock settings; below the settings form is a Back-in-Stock Insights panel.
  2. The panel shows totals for pending vs notified subscribers and lists the top 10 most-requested out-of-stock products by pending count.
  3. Use this to prioritise reordering — products with the highest pending counts are the ones losing sales now.

Auditing or exporting subscribers

  1. Go to WooCommerce → Back-in-Stock for the full CPT admin list.
  2. Columns show status (Pending/Notified pill), email (mailto link), product (linked to the product editor), subscribed date, and notified date.
  3. The CPT is registered with 'create_posts' => 'do_not_allow' — subscribers can only be created via the front-end form, never manually in admin.

For developers

Stability commitment. Hooks, filters, REST endpoints, and shortcodes documented below follow semver. Breaking changes happen only on major version bumps, with at least one minor version of deprecation notice in advance. Anything not listed here (internal AJAX handlers, settings save handlers, internal plumbing hooks) is implementation detail — those may change without notice.

Frontend asset handles

HandleTypeLoaded on
asteris-back-in-stockStyleSingle product pages only
asteris-back-in-stockScriptSingle product pages only (depends on jquery)

The script is localised with abisData containing ajaxUrl and an i18n map (error, invalid). Dequeue either handle on pages where you don’t want the form rendered.

WooCommerce integration points (informational)

The module attaches to standard WooCommerce hooks — these are not Asteris extension points but are listed so you know what to expect when overriding theme templates or chaining stock-change behaviour:

  • woocommerce_single_product_summary (priority 35) — form render
  • woocommerce_product_set_stock, woocommerce_variation_set_stock — restock dispatch
  • woocommerce_product_set_stock_status, woocommerce_variation_set_stock_status — restock dispatch

The frontend subscribe submission goes through admin-ajax.php and is part of the module’s own form contract — not a documented public API. Don’t call it from third-party code; the action name, nonce, and payload shape may change between minor versions.

Troubleshooting

Form is not appearing on an out-of-stock product

Confirm the product really is out of stock ($product->is_in_stock() returns false). For simple/external/grouped products the form is only rendered when stock is unavailable. Themes that replace woocommerce_single_product_summary with a custom template will also suppress the form — check the theme overrides in yourtheme/woocommerce/single-product/.

Notifications never arrive after restock

The module uses wp_mail() — if your site cannot send mail, neither can this module. Install an SMTP plugin (FluentSMTP, WP Mail SMTP, etc.) and run a deliverability test. Check WooCommerce → Back-in-Stock for the subscriber row: if status is still Pending after a confirmed restock, wp_mail() returned false. If status flipped to Notified but no email arrived, the mail left WordPress and was either filtered as spam or rejected by the recipient server.

Variable product form does not appear when selecting a variation

The form is rendered hidden and revealed by JavaScript. Confirm the asteris-back-in-stock script handle is loading and that no other plugin is breaking jquery or the found_variation WooCommerce event. Disable other front-end JS plugins to isolate.

Subscriptions appear to fail silently

The AJAX handler returns wp_send_json_success() for honeypot hits to defeat bots. If a legitimate browser auto-fills the hidden abis_hp field, the subscription will silently no-op. Check the network tab — a true success will also have inserted a CPT row visible in WooCommerce → Back-in-Stock.

”Security check failed” message

The asteris_bis_nonce is generated when the page renders and lifetimes match WordPress nonce defaults (12–24 hours). Page caching (LiteSpeed, WP Rocket, Cloudflare full-page cache) can serve a stale nonce. Exclude single-product pages from full-page caching, or configure your cache plugin to refresh nonces.

Known plugin conflicts

  • Other back-in-stock plugins (WooCommerce Waitlist, YITH Waiting List, ATKP Back in Stock) — disable them; running two systems will double-email subscribers and double-render the form.
  • Aggressive page caches that cache logged-out single-product HTML for hours can serve stale nonces — see troubleshooting above.
  • Email-deferring plugins that intercept wp_mail() and queue sends out-of-process are compatible in principle but will delay the moment the customer hears about the restock; we have not specifically tested with FluentCRM or MailPoet at this stage.
  • No other specific conflicts are known. Report any at the Asteris support forum.

What is in Free vs Paid

Back in Stock is a paid-tier module. Available in Starter, Pro, Agency, and Founder Lifetime tiers. There is no lite version in Asteris Free.

Changelog

VersionDateNotes
1.9.72026-06-01Documented in detail. Previous entries in plugin changelog.