Back-in-Stock Design Considerations

Primary Keys

Marketing Cloud Engagement

• Use the Service Cloud ContactID value for the subscriber key in Engagement.
• Avoid using email address, SMS number, or mobile device ID for the subscriber key.

Commerce Cloud

• CustomerID is the system-generated ID for a registered customer.
• Customer.Profile.customerNo is the number used to identify registered customers.
• Decorate the Commerce Cloud customer record with the CRM contact ID using b2c-crm-sync, a reference implementation for integration of Salesforce CRM and B2C Commerce.
• For unregistered visitors, use the contact resolution features of b2c-crm-sync.
• To learn more about integrating B2C Commerce with Service Cloud, review the enablement framework b2c-crm-sync.

Sales and Service Cloud

• Use or modify the B2C-CRM-Sync enablement solution helper flows to resolve to a matching contact record when it shares an email address. Configure duplicate rules to block, allow with alert, or report possible duplicates.
• If the email can’t be matched to an existing customer, the receiving REST flow endpoint can create a contact record. To create a contact, Service Cloud requires the last name field. Capture the customer’s first and last names in the notification request form in Commerce Cloud.
• The B2C-CRM-Sync enablement solution can send the email and ProductID. If the customer has logged in, pass the customerNo to help matching rules.
• Using a CRM ContactID simplifies overall integration with Experience Cloud and Commerce Cloud.

User Experience

• Capturing back-in-stock notification requests on the product detail page requires custom development on the B2C Commerce storefront. Ensure that your existing templates allow the selection of variations that are out of stock.
• If the customer is already logged in to the storefront, consider pre-populating the email address from the customer profile in the back-in-stock notification request.
• To create a contact, Service Cloud requires the last name field to be populated. Capture the customer’s last name in the notification request form in Commerce Cloud. If you have UX reasons for not capturing the name, such as asking for only an email address, explore using default values for last names.
• In your back-in-stock notification email template include the product image, name, and variation details, like size and color. Link to PDP. Consider advising that the item availability is correct at the time the email is sent. Remind the customer that they requested this notification and that it’s the only email they receive about it
• Do you maintain products on the storefront that you already know aren’t coming back into stock after they sell out? In this case, you could use a custom product attribute to specify which products are eligible for back-in-stock notifications and putting a process in place for populating and maintaining this attribute.
• You can create an alternative journey that notifies customers if a back-in-stock notification hasn’t been fulfilled after a certain time period and include product recommendations to highlight alternatives.
• Determine how to handle API failures, such as reporting back to the customer if the notification request was unsuccessful.

Reporting

• Engagement provides functionality to track opens and clicks.
• Google Analytics provides click tracking to revenue reporting capabilities. See Google Analytics 360 Integration for Engagement.
• Ensure that the notification sign-up data is being captured in Service Cloud, for example, the master ID as well as the SKU.

Configuring Data Feeds for Commerce and Engagement

• Use and extend the Engagement reference integration to create an Engagement catalog feed from B2C Commerce.
• Streaming updates provides an alternative to catalog feeds, but isn’t efficient for large numbers of product SKUs.

Localization

• When managing multi-country websites, include localized product information in the back-in-stock notification emails.
• If you intend to have separate business units in Engagement for each language, create a localized catalog feed for each one.
• If you have a single business unit covering multiple languages, include local product information and review the file size.

Performance

Catalog Import

• If your catalog includes more than one million SKUs, import the catalog using delta files.
• Import only the data that you plan to use in Engagement.
• If the volume or frequency of your catalog update concerns you, contact your Engagement account executive or success manager.

Marketing Cloud Engagement

• Review Journey Builder performance documentation to ensure optimal setup.
• Take note of the Contact Builder best practices.
• Ensure that an appropriate individual record data retention is in place on the Journey Data Extensions.

Service Cloud

• Each call from Commerce to Service to create a back-in-stock notification request is an individual API request and counts against daily API limits in Service Cloud. See API Limits.
• Be aware of the volume of API requests and storage requirements for the stock notification request records. See Data and File Storage Allocations.
• If the data is no longer required, archive or configure a flow to automatically remove it.

Feed and Notifications Scheduling

The availability status of each SKU is a snapshot from the time the catalog feed is created in B2C Commerce. To minimize time delay, review the scheduling of your catalog feed import and back-in-stock notification.

Fast Moving Inventory

If your products tend to sell through quickly, you risk having customers click a back-in-stock notification and find the product already out of stock. You can extend the catalog feed model to include the inventory count and send notifications only when the inventory is above a specified threshold. If this threshold changes per product, consider you can add a custom product attribute where the product-specific threshold can be maintained and include this attribute in the catalog feed. Ensure there’s a process in place for populating and maintaining this attribute.

Service Cloud Considerations

Use a back-in-stock notification custom object with a relationship to the contact to store the stock notification requests and status. Configure the Lightning UI to show these requests and status where required by service agents.

Considerations for the Engagement App

• Use a multi-org or single org connecter for MC Connect.
• Use additional Sales and Service Cloud journey activities in your journeys to update your contacts or other objects in Service Cloud.

Engagement Reference Implementation for B2C Commerce

The Engagement reference implementation for B2C Commerce includes steps for creating a catalog feed that you can use in this solution. No other functionality from the reference implementation is used in this solution but consider installing the collect tracking code in Commerce Cloud to support other use cases. Use cases include abandoned cart and behavior personalization using Einstein recommendations.

Related Content

	Review earlier steps in this solution. Back-in-Stock Notification Workflow
	Take the next steps in this implementation. Integration Reference Implementations for Back-in-Stock Notifications Configuring Back-in-Stock Notifications