FAQ

Waitlist is a free back-in-stock plugin for WooCommerce 8.0 or later. Shoppers leave an email and tick a consent box on an out-of-stock or backorder product. When the product, or one of its variations, is back in stock, Waitlist emails everyone waiting through a WooCommerce email. Subscribers stay in your own database.

Does Waitlist require WooCommerce?

Yes. Waitlist is a WooCommerce extension and requires WooCommerce 8.0 or later. It shows an admin notice and stays inactive if WooCommerce is missing or out of date.

Where does the waitlist form appear?

Automatically in the product summary on any out-of-stock or on-backorder product page (hooked at woocommerce_single_product_summary, priority 32). It never appears on an in-stock simple product. You can also place it with the [restock_waitlist] shortcode, as long as Show form on product page is enabled.

Can guests join the waitlist?

Yes by default. Turn off Allow guest subscriptions in WooCommerce > Waitlist to require an account; logged-out shoppers then see the login required message instead of the form’s submit. Guest signups are stored by email in the same database table as logged-in ones, there is no per-browser cookie or session behaviour.

How are notifications sent?

When WooCommerce sets a product’s stock status to instock, Waitlist queues a background mailing to every pending subscriber for that product (and its parent, for a variation). The mailing runs on Action Scheduler, or WP-Cron when Action Scheduler is not loaded, in batches of 50. Each message is the WooCommerce email Back in stock (Waitlist), which you can edit or switch off under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails. Subscribers emailed successfully are marked notified, so they are not contacted twice. See Using waitlists for the details.

Can a guest unsubscribe?

Yes. Every restock email has a leave link, signed for that subscription and email address, and List-Unsubscribe headers for one-click unsubscribe in mail apps. No account is needed.

Does it work with variations?

Yes. On a variable product the form stays hidden until the shopper selects a variation that is out of stock or on backorder; it then appears and stores that variation’s ID, so the signup is for the specific option. The notification on the parent product also reaches subscribers waiting on its variations.

Does this comply with GDPR / consent requirements?

Every signup requires the shopper to tick an explicit consent checkbox; the form will not submit without it (enforced both in the browser and server-side). Subscriber emails are stored only in a custom table in your own database and are never sent to any external service. You are responsible for the wording of your consent label and your privacy policy.

Where are subscribers stored?

In a single custom {prefix}_restock_waitlist table in your WordPress database, with a unique key on (product_id, email). Nothing is sent to any third party.

Can I export the subscriber list?

Yes. From WooCommerce > Waitlist > Subscribers you can view subscribers with Total/Waiting/Notified counts, filter by product, and export to CSV.

Can customers manage their waitlists?

Logged-in customers get a My Account > Waitlists tab (on by default) listing active signups with stock status and a Leave waitlist button. If the tab 404s after you enable it, resave Settings > Permalinks once.

Does it work without jQuery?

The form submit is vanilla-JavaScript fetch, no jQuery, no page reload. On variable products Waitlist does listen to WooCommerce’s own variation events (found_variation / reset_data), which are jQuery-based, to know when to show the form. So a simple-product form needs no jQuery; variable-product detection uses WooCommerce’s existing variation script.

Can I change the form markup?

Yes. Copy templates/single-product/waitlist-form.php (or myaccount/waitlists.php) into yourtheme/restock/ (keeping the same subfolders) and edit it there; the override survives updates. Developers can also use the restock/template/args and restock/template/path filters.

Is there a shortcode?

Yes, [restock_waitlist], with an optional id attribute to target a specific product. It still only renders for out-of-stock or backorder products. There is no other shortcode.

Does the form cause layout shift?

No. The form is server-rendered in the normal document flow, the plugin’s own script loads defer, and the success animation respects prefers-reduced-motion, so there is no jump as the page settles. On a variable product Waitlist also enqueues WooCommerce’s bundled wc-add-to-cart-variation script, which only reveals or hides the already-rendered form.

How do I remove all plugin data?

Deleting the plugin from the Plugins screen runs the uninstall routine. It cancels any queued restock mailing, removes the restock_settings, restock_schema_version and woocommerce_plogins_waitlist_restock_settings options, and drops the {prefix}_restock_waitlist table. The table is kept while Plogins Waitlist PRO is still installed, because the add-on stores subscribers there too; whichever of the two is deleted last drops it. On multisite this runs for every site.

Does it work with Shortlist and Rezervo?

Yes. Shortlist shows this sign-up form on out-of-stock items on the wishlist, switched in Shortlist’s settings. Rezervo takes pre-order products and variations off the waitlist, so a pre-order shows its Pre-order button and no second sign-up form; this needs Waitlist 1.1.5 or later and no setting.