Purple Dot, in collaboration with Astound, has just released a dynamic Salesforce-certified integration that unlocks the ability for your ecommerce brand to capture sales earlier, before the stock is available, by allowing customers to seamlessly pre-order products. It creates a direct workflow for your pre-orders, where inventory selected for pre-sell remains separate from in-stock inventory, thwarting confusion and merchandising headaches. More importantly, it means your brand can capitalize on increased demand and win more sales this upcoming Black Friday—and every day thereafter.
The prevalence of out-of-stock notifications since the onset of the pandemic, leading up to the supply chain crisis of 2021, shows no signs of relenting. The ongoing war in Ukraine, rising fuel and food prices, consumer behavior shifts, and more continue to create a perfect storm of uncertainty, making it harder to predict customer demand and resulting in brands having too much of the wrong inventory—and not enough of what the customer actually wants. Findings from Astound’s recent global consumer behavior report reveal that 52 percent of shoppers will abandon your digital site if the product they want is out of stock. Purple Dot’s new innovative solution delivers an alternative to the abhorred out-of-stock notification, providing brands a way to continue to sell through depleted inventory—by powering on the pre-order button.
Brands can download the cartridge via the Salesforce LINK Marketplace and install it out of the box onto their Commerce Cloud storefront, with minimal configuration and some setup of jobs, or a series of steps that perform a certain task. In this case, the jobs align your fulfillment efforts in Commerce Cloud with Purple Dot, ensuring incoming and remaining in-stock inventory data stays accurate. Then, the solution is ready to go. Your brand receives a Purple Dot dashboard to manage and select products to sell on pre-order, which will sync with the jobs initially created. As long as the stock is zero in Commerce Cloud, JavaScript modifies certain selectors on the product page so your shopper experiences a seamless pre-order and subsequent checkout journey, all powered by Purple Dot.
And if “Where’s my pre-order?” is on your list of FAQs, this all-in-one solution is for you. Purple Dot ensures your customers receive clear pre-order communications, including order confirmation with the expected ship date of their pre-order and automated updates for any changes to this date. Enabling full transparency and control, customers can easily manage their pre-orders, including cancellation capability, which ensures your brand complies with all Federal Trade Commission regulations on pre-orders. The waitlist feature builds trust in pre-ordering and fosters loyalty by facilitating a positive experience, contrary to the typical experience customers associate with pre-orders and out-of-stocks touchpoints: time-consuming customer service queries, fluctuating expected arrival dates, unexpected order cancellations, and so on. And, as research from Salesforce indicates, 88 percent of customers say the experience a brand provides is just as important as its products or services.
Purple Dot’s new Commerce Cloud cartridge can help you deliver a better customer experience and drive more revenue this upcoming Black Friday and beyond. And stay tuned for Purple Dot’s next solution. The company plans to provide a split-payment option that allows customers to pay a portion of their pre-order purchase up front and the remaining balance once the order ships, instilling even more flexibility and trust into the pre-order experience.
Are you ready to unlock higher conversion rates by avoiding missed sales all year long? We partner with innovative industry-leading technology providers like Purple Dot and Salesforce to create best-in-class customer experiences. Get in touch with one of our digital commerce experts today to find the solution that’s right for you.