The Challenge of Product Availability
Since 1974 Miwall Corporation has been producing and selling quality wholesale ammunition. Over the past 45 years, they have used trade shows, such as Shot Show, to make a name for themselves and sell through inventory.
In 2020 IntuitSolutions helped MiwallCorp.com launch their very first ecommerce store on the BigCommerce platform, providing their customers – the general public and Law Enforcement – with a means to purchase their ammo online.
In 2021, after Miwall became a little more acclimated to ecommerce, they discovered an issue that was limiting their ability to get “in stock” products in front of their customers. Being a wholesaler, products can sell out fairly quickly. This left their BigCommerce category pages with a list of “out of stock” products.
While a typical ecommerce store will sort their products by “Best Selling” or “Newest“, Miwall needed a way to ensure their customers would land on a page of products that are “in stock”. During the COVID-19 pandemic, several merchants are facing supply chain issues, so landing on a page of “out of stock” products may be more common these days. But there are solutions to help improve the customer experience in dealing with products they want being out of stock.
Below you’ll see that when MiwallCorp.com’s category page defaulted to sort products by “Best Selling” it displayed a page of “out of stock” products.
An Availability Sort Solution
Rather than expect their customers to use the BigCommerce Availability filter, Miwall wanted to ensure their customers could see which products were available as soon as they landed on the page. Being that this level of functionality isn’t natively available on the BigCommerce platform, our certified BigCommerce developers created a solution to sort products in every category by a new option, “Inventory.”
How does it work?
Our certified BigCommerce engineers developed a software exchange system leveraging the BigCommerce API and our in-house “BigCore” server as the middleware framework. The system handles real-time monitoring of stock levels and processing of “out of stock” products to update their sort order to 99999 within BigCommerce. This moved “out of stock” items to the bottom of search results and category pages, including multi-page results.
Our solution was also developed to remove pricing from “out of stock” products, while displaying a custom stock message set by Miwall in its place. Once the product is back in stock, the price displays and the sort order updates, placing it at the beginning of the category page. See it in action here.
About IntuitSolutions
IntuitSolutions specializes in ecommerce solutions for businesses on the BigCommerce platform. As a leading provider in the ecommerce industry since 2000, and an ‘Elite’ Partner with BigCommerce since 2012, we have helped thousands of businesses reach their online potential by focusing on communication, customer service, and mastery of the BigCommerce platform. Work with our in-house team of dedicated specialists to drive improved outcomes for your business.
Are you experiencing an issue with “out of stock” products cluttering the category pages of your BigCommerce store, making it difficult for your customers to make a purchase? Contact us to speak with our BigCommerce experts and get this solution added to your store. 866 843 4650.
