Customers and engagement

These features keep shoppers coming back: a wishlist, a side-by-side product compare, “notify me” emails when a sold-out product returns, and a newsletter sign-up. Each has a tab under StoreFront → Settings. What shoppers leave behind (stock-alert sign-ups, newsletter subscribers, contact messages, saved addresses) is listed in wp-admin, and the Companion plugin’s data is covered by WordPress’s own privacy tools.

Before you start

• You need an administrator account to open StoreFront → Settings and the StoreFront list screens.
• Make sure your site can send email: stock alerts depend on it. See Emails and background jobs.
• For the newsletter, have a Brevo account. Brevo is the only newsletter provider.
• To protect stock-alert sign-ups from bots, set up Turnstile under Authentication → Turnstile. See Sign-in and security.
• All settings tabs share one Save Changes button. Saved changes reach shoppers within about 5 minutes.

Wishlist

StoreFront›Settings›Wishlist

Shoppers save products with a heart button and find them again under Account → Wishlist (/account/wishlist). The wishlist is on by default.

Setting	What it does	Default
Wishlist (card toggle)	Master switch. Off hides every wishlist button, page and tab on the storefront.	On
Only for logged-in customers	“Guests see a sign-in prompt instead of a device-local wishlist.”	Off
Show the heart button on product grids	The wishlist button on product cards. The button on the product page is always shown.	On
Enable bulk actions	Lets shoppers remove several items at once on the wishlist page.	On
Empty wishlist message	Shown on the wishlist page when it has no products. Line breaks are kept. Leave it empty to use the storefront’s own message.	“You don’t have any products in the wishlist yet. You will find a lot of interesting products on our “Shop” page.”

Caution

The storefront wishlist is for signed-in customers only: a guest who taps the heart always gets a sign-in prompt. The Only for logged-in customers switch has no effect on the storefront, so you can leave it as it is.

The wishlist icon in the header and the Wishlist tab on the mobile bar are placed with the Header builder and Mobile tab bar settings.

Product compare

StoreFront›Settings›Compare

Compare lets shoppers put products side by side in a table at /compare. It is off by default: every compare button, the header icon and the compare page stay hidden until you switch it on.

1. Go to StoreFront → Settings → Compare and switch on the Compare card.
2. Choose a Header icon style and, optionally, upload a custom icon.
3. Tick the Compare table fields in the order you want the rows.
4. Click Save Changes.
5. Add the Compare element to your header in the Header builder if your header does not already have it.

Setting	What it does	Default
Compare (card toggle)	Master switch for compare buttons, the header icon and the compare page.	Off
Header icon style	How the header icon and its count are drawn: Inline count, Count badge, Count circle, Circled icon, Filled circle or Outlined circle. Colours follow your Colors palette.	Count badge
Icon	Built-in icon or Custom image.	Built-in icon
Custom image	Your own header icon from the Media Library. Shown only when Custom image is chosen.	None
Custom icon width (px)	Width of the custom icon, 16 to 60.	24
Show the item count	Shows how many products are in the compare list on the icon.	On
Group the table by category	Splits the compare table into a section per product category.	Off
Show the “Compare more products” button	Links shoppers back to the category they were browsing to add more.	On
Compare table fields	The rows of the table, in the order you tick them. Choose from Description, Sku, Availability, Weight, Dimensions, Brand and each of your global product attributes.	Description, Sku, Availability
Maximum products to compare	The most products a shopper can compare at once, 2 to 50.	20

Tip

The number fields on this tab (Custom icon width and Maximum products to compare) correct themselves on every keystroke, so typing a value such as 15 can jump to the limit before you finish. Use the field’s up and down arrows, or your keyboard’s arrow keys, to set the number instead.

Back-in-stock alerts

StoreFront›Settings›Stock alerts

When a product or variation is sold out, shoppers can ask to be emailed when it is back. Signed-in customers sign up with one click. Guests enter their email and must confirm it from an email first (double opt-in). When the product is restocked, everyone waiting gets a “back in stock” email. Alerts are on by default.

Setting	What it does	Default
Back-in-stock notifications (card toggle)	Master switch. Off hides the sign-up form on the storefront and sends no emails.	On
Send delay (minutes)	Waits this long after a restock before emailing, so a mistaken stock change can be undone first. When the time comes the product is checked again, and nothing is sent if it is out of stock. 0 sends straight away.	1
Minimum stock to notify	Only emails when at least this many units are in stock. Applies to products that manage stock; 0 sends on any restock.	1
Delete unverified sign-ups after (days)	Guest sign-ups that were never confirmed are removed after this many days. 0 keeps them forever.	30
Require Cloudflare Turnstile	Asks guests to pass the Turnstile check before signing up. Signed-in shoppers are never asked. Takes effect only while Turnstile is set up store-wide.	On

How it works, and what you cannot change on this tab:

• A guest’s sign-up stays Pending until they click the link in “Back-in-stock sign-up: verify email”. The link lasts 24 hours. Confirming links the sign-up to an existing account with that email, or creates a customer account for them (no password email is sent; they use “Forgot password” when they want to sign in).
• Sign-ups are accepted for out-of-stock simple products and variations. On a variable product, the shopper must choose a variation first.
• The alert is sent whenever the stock status changes back to In stock: by hand, by an order being cancelled, through an import or any other way.
• Emails go out in batches of 50. An email that fails stays waiting and is retried after at least 15 minutes.
• Each alert is sent once. A shopper who wants another alert signs up again.
• The three emails are edited under WooCommerce → Settings → Emails. See Emails and background jobs.

Caution

Do not switch on WooCommerce’s own experimental back-in-stock feature (the WOOCOMMERCE_BIS_ALPHA_ENABLED setting in wp-config.php) as well. Customers could be emailed twice. If it is on, a yellow warning appears on every admin page. For timely emails, ask your host for a real server cron job (see Background jobs).

See who is waiting for what

StoreFront›Stock Notifications

The Back-in-stock Notifications screen lists every sign-up.

• Columns: Product (linked to its edit screen), Email, Type (Customer or Guest), Status, Signed up and Notified (both in GMT).
• Statuses: Pending (a guest who has not confirmed yet), Active (confirmed and waiting), Sent (the alert went out) and Cancelled (by the customer, by you, or by the system, for example when the user is deleted).
• Search by email, and filter by status or product ID, then click Filter.
• Cancel an open sign-up from its row actions. You see “The sign-up was cancelled.”
• Export CSV downloads the sign-ups for a spreadsheet.

There are no bulk actions and no delete.

Caution

Export CSV on this screen always exports every sign-up, whatever search or filter is showing. Filter the spreadsheet afterwards if you need a subset.

Newsletter

StoreFront›Settings›Newsletter

Storefront newsletter sign-ups go through a sign-up form built in the official Brevo WordPress plugin (“Newsletter, SMTP, Email marketing and Subscribe forms by Brevo”). That form decides the lists, double opt-in and the messages shoppers see. Brevo is the only provider.

1. Open the Newsletter tab. The Brevo card shows what to do next and a button for each step:
   • Install plugin (the Brevo plugin is not installed);
   • Activate plugin (installed but not active);
   • Open plugin settings (connect the Brevo plugin to your account with its API key);
   • Create a form (connected, but there is no sign-up form yet).
2. When everything is ready, switch on Send signups to Brevo.
3. Choose the Signup form every storefront sign-up should go through. Under the picker you see its lists and whether double opt-in is on, with an Edit form link.
4. Click Save Changes.

Setting	What it does	Default
Send signups to Brevo (card toggle)	Sends storefront sign-ups to Brevo. Can only be switched on once the Brevo plugin is ready.	Off
Signup form	The Brevo form every sign-up goes through. If the plugin has exactly one form, it is chosen for you.	None

• With double opt-in on in the Brevo form, the confirmation link sends shoppers to the storefront, which shows a “subscription confirmed” message. This replaces the form’s own redirect setting, and needs the Storefront URL set.
• With no provider switched on, the storefront’s sign-up says “Newsletter signup is unavailable right now. Please try again later.” and nothing is stored.
• If Brevo later stops working, an amber banner “Newsletter signups are failing” appears on the tab.
• Saving with Brevo on but no form chosen is refused, and nothing on the screen is saved.

See your subscribers

StoreFront›Subscribers

The Newsletter Subscribers screen lists every accepted sign-up from the storefront: Email, Source (where it came from, such as footer) and Subscribed date, newest first, 20 per page. Export CSV downloads the whole list.

The list is read-only: there is no search, delete or unsubscribe here. Manage unsubscribes in Brevo.

Caution

The email box in the Promo popup does not subscribe anyone yet: sign-ups only come from the footer newsletter form. See Scripts and promo popup.

Contact messages

StoreFront›Contact Entries

Messages sent from the storefront’s Contact page are kept in an inbox under StoreFront → Contact Entries, with an unread count on the menu. You can search, filter by date, star, mark read or unread, reply by email, trash and export them. Setup and every action are described in Pages and content.

Customer addresses and profile pictures

Address book

Users›Edit user

Customers can keep up to 10 saved addresses on the storefront, each labelled Home, Office or Other. Shop managers and administrators can see them at the bottom of the user’s profile, under Address book: Label, Name, Address, Phone, and which ones are the default billing and shipping addresses.

• The panel is read-only. Customers manage their own addresses on the storefront.
• Editing the normal WooCommerce billing and shipping fields on the same screen updates the default entries in the book.
• “Not created yet” means the customer has not opened their address book on the storefront yet. It is built from their billing and shipping addresses the first time they do.

Profile pictures

A customer’s own picture replaces Gravatar everywhere WordPress shows an avatar: the Users list, profiles, reviews, comments and emails. The picture is one the customer uploaded on the storefront (JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF, up to 2 MB) or the one from their Google or Facebook account when they signed in with it. There is no setting, and you cannot change a customer’s picture from wp-admin. Customers without one keep their Gravatar.

Privacy requests

The Companion plugin plugs into WordPress’s own privacy tools, so a customer’s data request covers the storefront’s data too.

Tools›Export Personal Data

Data	Export includes	Erase does
Back-in-stock notifications	Each sign-up: email, product ID, status and sign-up date.	Deletes every sign-up for that email.
Address book	Each saved address, with its label and default flags. Only for a registered customer.	Removes the whole address book. WooCommerce’s own eraser handles the billing and shipping fields.
Contact form messages	Each message: name, email, phone, message, IP address and date.	Deletes every message from that email, including those in the Trash.

Use Tools → Export Personal Data or Tools → Erase Personal Data and add a request for the customer’s email address, as you would for any WordPress request.

Caution

Newsletter subscribers, wishlists, review photos and videos, and profile pictures are not included in these tools. Handle them yourself when a customer asks: remove the subscriber in Brevo, and delete review files from the review’s Review media & reports box (see Reviews).

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
No compare buttons anywhere	Compare is off by default.	Switch it on under Settings → Compare and save.
Compare header icon missing	The header has no Compare element.	Add it in the Header builder.
Restock emails arrive late, or not at all	WordPress’s built-in scheduler only runs when someone visits the site.	Set up a real cron job; check WooCommerce → Status → Scheduled Actions.
Customers got two restock emails	WooCommerce’s experimental back-in-stock feature is also on.	Remove WOOCOMMERCE_BIS_ALPHA_ENABLED from wp-config.php.
Guest sign-ups stay Pending	The guest has not clicked the confirmation email.	Expected; check spam folders and that email is being delivered.
Newsletter form says sign-up is unavailable	No newsletter provider is switched on.	Finish the Brevo steps and switch on Send signups to Brevo.
The Brevo toggle is greyed out	The Brevo plugin is not installed, active, connected or has no form.	Follow the step shown on the Brevo card.

Next steps

Wishlist and compareWhat shoppers see.

Stock alertsThe notify-me journey from the shopper's side.

Emails and background jobsEdit the emails and make sure they go out on time.

Marketing toolsNewsletter, promo popup and more.