Sephora’s Back-in-Stock Email and Loss Aversion

For a Canadian—where winters are brutally dry—there are few things more disappointing than finding out your favorite moisturizer is sold out.

(Especially if you're due for a re-stock!)

Luckily, you can overcome this disappointment with back-in-stock emails. 

By notifying customers when an item they want is available again, you remove the previous buying obstacle they encountered AND you capitalize on their buying intent. That's a win-win in my books.

In this issue you’ll see:

• How Sephora leverages scarcity (among other persuasive techniques) in a back-in-stock email

• Why scarcity is particularly persuasive

• How you can use Sephora’s scarcity strategy in your emails

Let’s dig in.

THE BREAKDOWN

Sephora’s back-in-stock email

Here's a back-in-stock email I recently received from Sephora:

Let's start at the top:

The subject line & preview:

Subject line: It's BACK!

Preview: Carolyn, get it before it's gone.

Here's what works:

• Layers personalization and scarcity in the preview—nice touch.

• Uses "it's" in the subject line to open a curiosity loop. I need to open the email to see what product is back in stock. (This is a solid technique for driving curiosity-driven opens… but you need to make sure your email body closes the loop quickly. Otherwise, you’ll frustrate your reader.)

Here's what we might test:

• Subject line: 

  • Test a subject line that's a little more explicit in intent, for a more qualified open. (Because I don't recall opting in for this back-in-stock email, the subject line doesn't actually elicit the intended excitement.)

  • Use the current preview as the subject line with a new preview that more explicitly hints at what's inside (for example, That moisturizer you've been eyeing is back (for now)).

The body copy & calls to action:

Here's the core of the email body copy:

Here's what's working:

• Prioritizes the primary CTA. This level of focus on driving the goal action—in this case, shopping the back-in-stock item—isn't typically executed well in ecommerce email marketing because there are often so many things that marketers want the reader to do. But we must be disciplined and help the reader focus. Otherwise, we risk creating an environment where the reader succumbs to the paradox of choice.

Here's what we'd fix:

• Mobile responsiveness: I'm being nit-picky… but email designs on mobile matter (especially if you're like Sephora and also use a mobile app to drive sales). The padding around the "Recommended Just For You" crosshead is a little narrow—more white space would make the email easier to read on a small screen.

• Formatting (because of impact on mobile experience): On mobile, I can't see the product without scrolling. This means that I see the CTA without the necessary context to drive a qualified click. We'd recommend reformatting for better product visibility, either by repositioning the elements or rewriting the copy so it includes the product name.

Here's what we might test:

• Hook:

  • Test leveraging a principle of persuasion, like scarcity. (Currently, it’s just a restatement of the subject line.)

• Email body:

  • Remove everything currently in the email that’s not related to the back-in-stock product to help keep the reader focused on taking the goal action. (We’d want to keep a close eye on the revenue generated during this test, as the change removes content that may be driving sales.)

The cadence:

It’d be a miss if I didn’t also touch on the cadence and trigger for this particular email… because the trigger is unclear.

I don't remember signing up for a stock notification, so it seems like the trigger is a combination of browse abandonment + stock depletion timing + back-in-stock timing. (My best guess, based on the browsing and buying behavior I remember.)

The result? A somewhat confusing reader experience.

THE PSYCHOLOGY

Scarcity principle + loss aversion = conversion boosts.

There’s plenty I could talk about in this email, but what’s particularly interesting is Sephora’s use of scarcity.

If you’ve read Cialdini’s Influence you’ll already be familiar with the scarcity principle. If not, here’s the summary:

The scarcity principle is a widely studied social-psychological phenomenon where people view less available things—scarce things—as higher value. So, the less available something is, the higher the value we’re likely to assign it.

When employed ethically, scarcity is particularly persuasive due to loss aversion.

Loss aversion is the cognitive bias that shows we perceive avoiding losses as higher value and having more impact than acquiring gains of proportional size. For example, we’d feel that losing $50 is more painful than the joy that comes from gaining $50.

(There are some truly incredible studies on the topic. If you’d like to dig in further, start with this and this.)

The Sephora email taps into the scarcity principle and loss aversion by tapping into the idea of limited quantities: the product was out of stock before (i.e. high demand) and, as the preview suggests, the product may be out of stock again soon.

THE ACTIONABLE TIP

More than going, going, gone.

Here’s the key strategy you should swipe for your email marketing copy (and can also easily be applied to copy across your marketing ecosystem):

Leverage scarcity (ethically) to increase the perceived pain of missing out.

It’s worth noting that scarcity isn’t just the total quantity of available products. Scarcity can also be leveraged with things like:

• Limited time. (Think Black Friday sales.)

• Limited information. (Think insider-only deals.)

• Limited inclusion. (Think application-only purchases.)

You can leverage scarcity and loss aversion by:

• Using countdown timers when you’re running limited-time sales—add ‘em to your emails AND your websites (preferably in a sticky banner).

• Leveraging “first to know”-style messaging to drive list opt-ins AND, when providing your reader access to limited information, mention this!

• Mentioning limited quantities when it makes sense to do so, like when you have limited seats available or stock of a physical product is running low—don’t do this if the limits aren’t real (used incorrectly, this is a fast way to erode trust).