Playbook, fashion retailer
Size level availability and the hole in the middle of the run
This is the only version of the stock question where the product is available and the customer still cannot buy it. The line is on the site, the photographs are there, and the one size that matters is greyed out. General availability answers miss it entirely, because the honest answer depends on whether the shop bought this line once for a season or reorders it all year.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for stock availability holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Here the line is available and the customer's size is not, so an answer about the product misses the question completely.
- The sizes that sell through first are the middle of the run, which means the person asking is usually the most common size rather than an outlier.
- A seasonal line is frequently bought once, so a missing size often means gone rather than delayed, and that word is the whole value of the reply.
- Restocks arrive as a full size run or not at all, which makes the answer a property of the line rather than of the size the customer asked about.
How it arrives
- will you get this back in a size 12
- is this coming back in stock
- have you got any mediums left
- can you check one of your shops for a size 10
- when is the next drop
- are you repeating this line
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Repeat lines against seasonal buys | Which of your lines are carried continuously and reordered, and which are bought once for a season and not repeated. This one distinction answers most of the traffic here and almost no shop publishes it. |
|---|---|
| How size level notifications work | Whether the notify option is per size or per product, what triggers it, and the fact that returned stock going back on sale is a common reason a single size reappears briefly. |
| What is visible about shop stock | Whether your site publishes anything about stock in physical shops, and if not, what a customer should do instead. Saying plainly that a shop rail cannot be seen from here is better than a vague maybe. |
| The nearest thing on the same block | For each line, the other pieces cut on the same block or in the same fit, so a customer whose size has gone has somewhere to go that will fit the same way. |
The reply
I cannot see stock, so the size selector on the product page is the most current thing available to either of us. What I can tell you is whether the line is a repeat or a seasonal buy, and this one is seasonal, which means a size that sells through does not usually come back in. The notify option covers you if returned stock goes back on sale, and the same block is cut in another fabric that is still available across the full run of sizes.
It defers to the page rather than competing with it, then answers the real question, which is whether waiting will work. Saying seasonal out loud gives the customer permission to stop hoping, which is the kindest and most commercially useful thing in the reply. The alternative is offered in block terms, so it is a genuine substitute rather than a category link.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks about stock on a shop floor, or asks for a size to be held, checked or transferred between locations.
I cannot see what is on a shop rail or put anything by. Leave your name, email, the piece and the size and somebody will check and let you know.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a size is available, low or nearly gone.
- Never predict when a size will return on a seasonal line.
- Never offer to check a shop rail or hold a size at a counter.
- Never suggest going up or down a size because the wanted one is unavailable.
Questions
- Why does the repeat or seasonal distinction matter so much?
- Because it is the only part of the answer stable enough to publish and useful enough to act on. A customer told a line is seasonal buys the alternative today. One told it might come back checks the site for a fortnight and then buys elsewhere.
- Should it mention returned stock going back on sale?
- Briefly, as the reason the notify option is still worth using on a seasonal line. It is true, it explains an odd behaviour customers notice, and it stops the notify option looking pointless once the line has been described as not repeating.
- Can it recommend the nearest alternative reliably?
- Only as well as the material lets it. Category links are useless here because the customer needs the same fit, not the same product type. Indexing which pieces share a block is a small piece of work that turns this from a dead end into a sale.
Keep reading
- Everything for a fashion retailerFit is both the most asked pre-purchase question and the biggest cause of returns. Here is what a clothing retailer can safely automate.
- Handling stock availability in generalWhat an assistant can say about ranges, restock patterns and alternatives, and the damage one confident wrong stock answer does.
- When a return stops being a policy lookup and becomes a decisionPast the window, tag removed, worn once. These are judgement calls a shop makes, and an assistant answering them decides them wrongly.
- One order, several lines, and they did not all leave togetherClothing orders split by line and by drop. A despatch email covers one garment, and a line can leave an order after the money was taken.
- The date in their head belongs to somebody elseThe deadline is an event, not a preference. Cut-offs, pre-order windows and a collection counter that closes before the shop does.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.