A few evenings ago, at around eleven o’clock, I was looking online for an egg slicer.
I know, not exactly the most exciting way to spend an evening. But I simply hadn’t had time to deal with it during the day.
I found one in an online shop.
And it was a lovely shade of green. Anyone who knows me will understand just how important that detail was.
Unfortunately, it was out of stock.
I checked the product page to see whether it said when it might be available again. Nothing. There was no expected date, no option to request a notification, and no way for me to say that I was interested.
So I closed the website.
I cannot even remember which shop it was now.
And yes, I still do not have an egg slicer.
The online shop learnt nothing about me
After returning empty-handed to my cold lemonade, I started thinking about it.
That business will probably never know I visited its website.
They do not know that I found the product.
They do not know that I liked it, or that I would have bought it there and then.
The system only showed that the item was out of stock. It could not see that, on the other side of the screen, there was someone with a genuine intention to buy.
An out-of-stock product does not always mean a lost customer
Most potential customers leave quietly.
They do not complain. They do not send an email. They simply close the page.
The business may never realise there was any demand for the product at all.
But the visitor might have been happy to wait a few days if they had been given an easy way to stay connected.
A well-designed e-commerce assistant can step in at this point.
It cannot guarantee that every interested visitor will become a customer. But it can offer to notify them when the product is available again, suggest a suitable alternative, or ask which features matter most to them.
Instead of disappearing without a trace, the visitor has an opportunity to express their interest.
The business, in turn, can learn that someone was genuinely looking for that product.
At NLS Business Automation, we create personalised e-commerce and customer systems that help make these buying intentions visible, even when the team has finished work for the day.
Because you may no longer be working.
But your next customer may have only just found you.