Product Notifications

[Dan Cole]

I'm considering whether to use or remove the product notifications options from my website and wondered how other people are using it. I get a number of customers looking for updates and selecting to be notified on updates but I'm not sure what they might be expecting. The products I sell are aquarium related commodities and updates might entail me updating images, product descriptions and perhaps prices...mostly upwards. I can't imagine email notifications for these types of updates would be of much interest so I'm not sure I understand what customers are expecting when asking to be notified of updates. Does anyone have any thoughts or insights regarding that or are making good use of those requests?

Dan

[Kofod95]

For us that feature is for when something is back in stock after a long period as sold out, or for telling about a big change in the product. Could be a big price increase, could be if the latest shipment had something extraordinary about it.

//Daniel

[14Steve14]

We tend only to use them when stock is updated. I also changed most of the text in the language file so that it is only related to stock updates and not product notifications. I did try to get a developer to produce an automatic way of detecting whether stock has been updated and then to send an email to those that requested them. They were then deleted so they didn't keep getting them.

It never worked and I generally forgot about using the system until my daughter started working for me. Now on a weekly basis she sits and manually goes through the list and emails those that she thinks need notifying about stock updates. Does it do any good. No idea is the answer. We do occasionally hear back from someone who goes on the buy the products but there is no real way to track the emails and responses. We do also delete any requests for products like the downloads that we sell as the stock is never updated which helps keep the list down to a manageable level.

[burt]

I was close to getting rid of the notifications system a couple of times in the early days of BS/CE.
Each time, there was vocal support in favour of keeping it so I just left it alone.

I wonder if it would be possible to hook into admin/catalog.php to send emails when the product stock is increased. That might make Notifications slightly more useful.

[Dan Cole]

For us that feature is for when something is back in stock after a long period as sold out, or for telling about a big change in the product. Could be a big price increase, could be if the latest shipment had something extraordinary about it.

The back in stock idea I understand and there used to be a specific add-on for that, which I can see value in. I think it was open to anyone with an email address and not just customers. Have you also changed the text accordingly, like Steve has done, and mentioned the possibility of being notified about big price increases and product changes?

Dan

[Dan Cole]

I was close to getting rid of the notifications system a couple of times in the early days of BS/CE.

I can see why and with the exception of stock notifications, it does seem like a rather strange thing to have in the core.

Dan

[heatherbell]

I'm considering whether to use or remove the product notifications options from my website ... I'm not sure what they might be expecting.

Presuming this is referring to Modules > Content > Product Notifications (Group) checkout_success?
Guessing that a customer can only expect whatever the store-owner informs them in the module.
It can be useful for services, to inform customers of changes to that service or for downloads (software?), to inform customers of updates to that software or for products that are now available as "New & Improved!".
Therefore, it is a useful module for some. However, we find it annoying that is installed by default and it is on our memo list of modules to routinely remove from new installs.
We do use the Pro Addon app.php/addons/supporters_code/s02e09_notifications which is very useful. We only show it on products where quantity <=0 informing customers that they can elect to be notified when back in stock.

[bonbec]

I make accessories for model railways in my laser workshop and I sell them via my website.
Personally, I no longer use the notification system since I realized that two of my competitors started manufacturing products that were often restocked. This informed them about what was selling the most.
Maybe I'm a special case, but it needed to be said.

[burt]

I believe there is also a Box module that allows logged in users to enable/disable notifications (per product). It's a somewhat useable system, it's just the clunkiness of the admin side lets it down.

--

Idea for exploration;

1. An info page with a replacement system something like;
Title:
{{name}} we've just updated {{product_name}}
Text:
Hi {{name}}, we've just updated our product {{product_name}} and you asked to be notified about it. {{product_url}} You can unsubscribe from our product notifications by signing in to your account at our shop XYZshop.com

2. A hook for catalog.php watching when shopowner edits.
If some parameter matches (eg stock increase) - send email (taken from the relevant info_page slug) to all those customers who have notifications for the product enabled. Obviously with replacements in place (eg {{name}} we've just updated {{product_name}} becomes Mickey we've just updated Blue Widget

--

I think/know that would be possible as all the above is just a collection of jigsaw puzzle pieces that need to be made into a nice picture. Main concern is if a shopowner had 1000s of subscribers (and the hosts email system got overwhelmed). Do any shopowners have 1000s of subs on a product?

[burt]

We do use the Pro Addon app.php/addons/supporters_code/s02e09_notifications which is very useful. We only show it on products where quantity <=0 informing customers that they can elect to be notified when back in stock.

I have no memory of making this :-\

Here is another tangentially related (to notifications) addon;
app.php/addons/paid_addon/subscriber_count

I will upload that into the PRO forum as a gratis download;
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2204
I think it adds the notification count in the left hand side column when looking at a product in admin/catalog.php