How to Address the Stocking Dilemma During Holiday Sales with Boost’s Toolkits

Ellie Ho

June 17, 2024

November 14, 2025

•

3 min read

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The BFCM and holiday sales season presents a massive opportunity, but it also creates a high-stakes inventory challenge. Rapid shifts in shopping behavior make it increasingly challenging to predict demand accurately. This leads to two critical, opposite problems:

overstocking, where unsold goods tie up your cash,
understocking (stockouts), where you lose sales and customer trust.

Instead of relying on a crystal ball, the solution is to use powerful tools that give you direct control over your inventory and customer demand. This guide shows you how to use Boost’s merchandising, pre-order, and back-in-stock features to turn inventory imbalance into a profit-driving strategy.

Your inventory management toolkit

Here is a simple breakdown of how Boost’s features solve your specific inventory challenges.

Your Inventory Challenge	The Boost Solution	How It Works
Overstock (I have too much)	Visual Merchandising	Use Boost rules based on a "Sales" Collection Attribute to promote items, or Demote to hide them.
Overstock (I need to sell in bulk)	Volume Discount Bundles	Create "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" offers to increase AOV and clear inventory fast.
Overstock (I need to promote a sale)	Inline Banners	Place an eye-catching banner for your "Last Chance" collection directly within search results.
Understock (It sold out)	Back-in-Stock Notifications	A "Notify Me" button captures customer emails, and integrates with Klaviyo to alert them when the item is restocked.
New Product (I don't know how much to order)	Pre-order Management	Gauge real demand before you buy inventory by offering flexible payment options (e.g., partial payment or no payment in advance).

Holiday Inventory Strategies at a Glance

Your Challenge: You have an inventory imbalance. You either have too much (overstock) or too little (understock).

Your Toolkit for a Solution:

To Fix Overstock: Use Boost’s Visual Merchandising to promote specific collections and Volume Discount Bundles to sell in bulk. Use Inline Banners to create urgency for your sale.
To Fix Understock: Use Back-in-Stock Notifications to capture customer demand during a stockout and automatically notify them upon restock.
To Prevent Imbalance: Use Pre-order Management to gauge real-time demand for new products before you invest in inventory.

The twin problems: Understanding Overstock vs. Understock

Every merchant faces the inventory balancing act. Fail to forecast demand, and you're stuck with one of these two costly problems.

Inventory Problem	Why It Happens	The Consequence for Your Store
Overstock (Excess Inventory)	Inaccurate demand forecasting, supply chain concerns, and poor merchandising.	Restricted cash flow; high storage costs; product depreciation and obsolescence.
Understock (Stockouts)	Inaccurate demand forecasting, unexpected popularity, and supply chain delays.	Lost sales (70% of shoppers may switch to a rival); damaged customer trust; missed AOV opportunities.

Solution for overstock: Move inventory with smart merchandising

When you have too much stock, you need to make those products visible and enticing. Boost’s advanced merchandising tools give you the power to strategically promote your surplus inventory without hurting your brand's image.

Use Rule-Based Merchandising: Manually rearranging products is too slow for the holidays. Instead, create rules. You can now use Shopify's collection attribute directly within Boost's merchandising rules.
- Real-world tech: Create a "Last Chance" collection in Shopify. Then, set a Boost rule to automatically boost any product in that collection, moving it higher in search results.

Check these out!

Best Online Merchandising Tips for SMBs to Skyrocket Sales

How To Optimize Online Merchandising For Shopify Fashion Stores

Top 5 Search Merchandising Tips To Apply During Holiday Selling Season

Create Enticing Bulk Offers: The best way to move overstock is to sell it in bulk. With Boost's Volume Discount Bundles, you can create compelling offers that reward customers for making multiple purchases.
- Real-world tech: Set up a "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" or "30% off three or more" offer on your overstocked items to clear inventory while driving up AOV quickly.
Promote with Banners: Draw attention to your sale collections. The Inline Banner feature lets you place an eye-catching promotional banner directly within a collection or search results page. This is perfect for enhancing visibility and directing customers to your sales.
Help Shoppers Find Deals: During sales, customers are price-conscious. Boost's advanced faceted search and filtering make it simple for shoppers to browse your inventory by price, category, or size, helping them find the exact deal they are looking for.

Solution for understock: Turn demand into data and sales

A "Sold Out" sign is a dead end. Boost gives you two powerful tools to turn that potential loss into a future sale and a valuable data point.

1. For new products: Mitigate risk with Pre-orders

Why guess your inventory needs? Boost’s Pre-order feature lets you gauge demand with perfect accuracy before you place a factory order.

You can build excitement and secure sales for new launches, minimizing waste and maximizing profit. To reduce cart abandonment, consider offering flexible payment options, such as full payment, partial payment, or even no upfront payment at all. This turns a product launch from a guess into a guaranteed success.

2. For sold-out items: Turn stockouts into sales with Back-in-Stock

When a popular item sells out, don't lose the customer. Boost’s Back-in-Stock Notifications feature transforms this loss into a sales opportunity.

It's more than just a notification; it's a powerful lead generation tool.

Capture Leads: A customizable "Notify Me" button collects customer contact information for sold-out items, allowing you to stay in touch with interested customers.
Automate Sales: It seamlessly integrates with marketing tools like Klaviyo to send automatic email or SMS alerts as soon as the product is restocked.
Track Demand: The backend dashboard gives you valuable insights into your most in-demand products, helping you prioritize restocking.

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Stop guessing, start controlling your stocks effectively

Making the most of your inventory is key to a profitable holiday season. Consumer behavior will always be hard to predict, but you don't have to be in the dark. With a complete toolkit for merchandising, pre-orders, and back-in-stock, you can be flexible, stay in sync with your customers, and turn inventory challenges into your biggest sales opportunities.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How can I use merchandising to sell overstocked items without annoying customers?

The key is subtlety. Instead of pinning all sales items to the top, use a Boost rule to give them a gentle lift in search results. You can use the Collection Attribute to apply this rule only to products in your "Sale" collection. You can also add a non-intrusive Inline Banner to promote the sale without disrupting the shopping flow.

2. Will a "Notify Me" button for sold-out items really bring customers back?

Yes, if it's automated. A simple button is not enough. Boost's Back-in-Stock feature integrates directly with marketing tools like Klaviyo. When you restock, an automated email or SMS is sent instantly to a high-intent list of leads, resulting in a much higher conversion rate than a simple restock announcement.

3. What if I offer pre-orders but a customer doesn't want to pay the full amount upfront?

This is a common friction point that Boost's Pre-order feature solves. You can offer flexible payment options, including partial payment or even no payment in advance, to secure the order. This reduces cart abandonment, builds trust, and lets you capture the most accurate demand data.

4. Can I use Boost to create a "Buy One Get One" (BOGO) offer to clear stock?

Yes. You can use the Volume Discount Bundles feature to create these kinds of bulk-purchase offers. This encourages shoppers to buy more, helping you clear overstock inventory while driving a higher average order value (AOV).

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Ellie Ho

•

Content Marketing Specialist

June 17, 2024

•

3 min read

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How to Address the Stocking Dilemma During Holiday Sales with Boost’s Toolkits

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