Understanding Collection Subscriptions

Collection Subscriptions extend DemandLoop's standard "Notify Me" feature from individual products to entire collections. A customer subscribes once to a collection and automatically receives a notification whenever any out-of-stock item in that collection becomes available — without needing to track each product manually.

What you'll accomplish

• Understand how collection subscriptions differ from product-level "Notify Me"
• Enable and configure collection subscriptions per collection
• Know how deduplication prevents customers from receiving duplicate notifications
• Verify the feature is working correctly in your storefront

Requirements

• DemandLoop app installed on your store
• Performance plan — Collection Subscriptions are not available on Free or Essentials plans
• Collections with inventory tracking enabled in Shopify

How Collection Subscriptions Work

For Customers

When a customer visits a collection page, they see a "Notify Me About This Collection" button (rendered by the DemandLoop widget). The subscription flow is:

1. Customer clicks the subscribe button on a collection page
2. A compact email modal appears
3. Customer enters their email address and confirms
4. Subscription is created — the customer is now watching the entire collection
5. A confirmation message is displayed: "You'll be notified when items in this collection restock"

From this point on, whenever any out-of-stock product or variant in that collection comes back in stock, the customer receives an automatic notification email.

What the notification email includes:

• The specific product that restocked
• Product image, name, variant, and price
• "Shop Now" call-to-action with attribution tracking
• Unsubscribe link (from this collection)

Customers can manage all their collection subscriptions through the customer subscription dashboard, available at /apps/demandloop/my-subscriptions.

For Merchants

From the DemandLoop admin under Collections:

• View all collections in your store with subscription counts
• Enable or disable subscriptions per individual collection
• Monitor notification history and delivery status
• Review attributed revenue and conversion data per collection

Notifications are dispatched automatically — no manual action is needed once the collection is enabled.

Setting Up Collection Subscriptions

Step 1: Enable the Feature

1. Go to Collections in the DemandLoop admin
2. You will see a list of all collections synced from your Shopify store
3. Toggle Enable collection subscriptions on for each collection you want to support

Step 2: Add the Widget to Your Collection Pages (Shopify)

1. Go to Shopify Admin → Online Store → Themes → Customize
2. Navigate to your Collection page template
3. Click Add block
4. Select Apps → DemandLoop: Collection Subscribe Button
5. Drag the block to your preferred position (typically above or below the product grid)
6. Customize the button text and appearance in block settings
7. Click Save

Step 3: Verify the Widget Appears

1. Visit one of your enabled collection pages in your storefront
2. Confirm the subscribe button is visible
3. Test the subscription flow using a test email address
4. Check Collections → select the collection → Subscribers to confirm the subscription was recorded

Per-Collection Configuration

Each collection has its own settings, accessible from Collections → click any collection.

Notification Deduplication

If a customer is subscribed both to a specific product (via the "Notify Me" widget) and to a collection that contains that product, DemandLoop sends them only one notification — not two.

This deduplication is automatic. The system checks for overlapping subscriptions before dispatching and suppresses the duplicate.

Example:

Customer subscribes to:
  1. "Blue Denim Jacket, Size M" — via product page Notify Me widget
  2. "New Arrivals" collection — via collection subscribe button

Product "Blue Denim Jacket, Size M" restocks →
  → Customer receives ONE notification (not two)

This protects your customers from inbox fatigue and keeps your sending reputation clean.

Fair Queue and Collection Notifications

Collection subscriptions integrate with DemandLoop's Fair Queue system. When a restock event triggers notifications for a collection:

1. All active subscribers for that collection are queued
2. Notifications are sent in controlled batches (configurable size and delay)
3. If inventory sells out between batches, remaining subscribers are held until the next restock

This prevents a surge of notifications from overwhelming inventory immediately after a restock, and ensures that early subscribers have a realistic chance to purchase.

Fair Queue settings for collection notifications are managed at Notifications → Fair Queue, with per-collection overrides available as described above.

Analytics

Collection Subscriptions include full analytics on the Performance plan:

Attribution uses the same token-based system as product-level notifications. When a subscriber clicks through and purchases, the order is attributed to the collection subscription.

Plan Comparison

Verify

After setting up Collection Subscriptions, confirm:

• The subscribe button appears on your enabled collection pages in the storefront
• Entering an email and subscribing shows a confirmation message
• The new subscriber appears in Collections → select collection → Subscribers
• When a product in the collection restocks, an email is sent to active subscribers
• A customer subscribed to both a product and its collection receives only one notification
• Collection analytics update after notifications are sent

FAQ

Q: Does a collection subscription cover all variants of a product in the collection? Yes. If any variant in the collection restocks, all active collection subscribers are notified — regardless of which specific variant they may be interested in. For variant-specific interest, the product-level "Notify Me" widget is more targeted.

Q: Can a customer subscribe to multiple collections? Yes. There is no limit on how many collections a single customer can subscribe to. Each collection subscription is independent.

Q: What if I add a new product to a collection after customers have subscribed? Phase 1 of Collection Subscriptions covers restock notifications only. When a new product is added to the collection, existing subscribers are not notified unless that product is also out of stock and subsequently restocks. New arrival notifications are planned for a future release.

Q: Can I disable collection subscriptions for a single collection without affecting others? Yes. Each collection has its own enable/disable toggle. Disabling subscriptions for one collection does not affect other collections.

Q: Do collection subscription emails count toward my monthly email limit? The Performance plan includes 100,000 emails per month. Collection subscription notifications count toward this limit. Overages are billed at $2.50 per 1,000 emails.

Q: What happens to existing subscribers if I disable a collection? Existing subscribers are preserved in the database. No new notifications are sent while the collection is disabled. If you re-enable the collection, subscribers become active again and will be notified on the next restock event.

Q: Can customers unsubscribe from a specific collection without losing other subscriptions? Yes. The unsubscribe link in each notification is scoped to the specific collection. Clicking it removes only the collection subscription and does not affect product-level "Notify Me" subscriptions or other collection subscriptions.

Troubleshooting

Problem: Collection subscribe button does not appear on the collection page Likely cause: Block not added in theme editor, or the collection is disabled in DemandLoop settings Fix: Open Shopify theme editor → verify the DemandLoop Collection Subscribe Button block is present on the collection template. Check Collections in DemandLoop admin to confirm the collection has subscriptions enabled. How to confirm: Visit the collection page in your storefront — the subscribe button should be visible above or below the product grid.

Problem: "Collection Subscriptions require the Performance plan" message in the admin Likely cause: Your store is on the Free or Essentials plan Fix: Upgrade to the Performance plan at Billing → Plans. The feature unlocks immediately after the plan change is confirmed. How to confirm: After upgrading, the Collections section in the DemandLoop admin should show your collections list with enable/disable toggles.

Problem: Subscribers exist but no notifications were sent after a restock Likely cause: Fair Queue is batching notifications and the next batch has not yet been dispatched, or the collection's restock notifications are disabled Fix: Check Collections → select the collection → confirm Restock notifications is toggled on. Check Notifications → Activity to see if notifications are queued. If Fair Queue delay is long, notifications may still be in progress. How to confirm: Notification status in Collections → Notifications should move from "queued" to "sent" as batches are dispatched.

Problem: A customer received two notifications for the same restock (from a product subscription and a collection subscription) Likely cause: Deduplication may not have matched the subscriptions due to different email formats (e.g., uppercase vs lowercase) Fix: Deduplication uses SHA-256 hash of the normalized (lowercase) email. If the customer subscribed with different email casing, this can cause a miss. Contact support with the customer email and subscription IDs so we can investigate. How to confirm: Check the subscriber record in both the product subscriptions list and the collection subscriptions list to verify the email addresses match exactly.

Problem: Collection analytics show zero attributed revenue despite confirmed purchases Likely cause: Attribution token was not included in the click (customer navigated to the store directly rather than through the email link), or the attribution window expired Fix: Attribution requires the customer to click the "Shop Now" link in the notification email. Direct navigation to the store is not attributable. The default attribution window is 7 days from notification send. How to confirm: Check Notifications → Activity for the specific notification and look at the "Clicked" and "Converted" status columns.

Next Steps

• How Notifications Work — understand the full notification lifecycle including Fair Queue
• Fair Queue Settings — configure batch size and delay for all notification types
• Understanding Analytics — track performance and revenue attribution
• Understanding Plans & Pricing — compare plan features and limits