Schedule the release of special items and plan a promotion around the product launch.

A product drop, sometimes called a restock or shop update, is a special release of new products that you build anticipation for days or weeks in advance, then publish on a specific date and time. Often, the products that you "drop" are limited edition, or won't be restocked soon once they sell out. Releasing new products as a drop is a great way to drive traffic to your site and keep building an audience of loyal customers.

Follow the steps in this guide to create your own product drop.

Step 1 - Use analytics to understand your audience

Decide who you want to target with your new products and what you're going to sell. Do you want to sell something that only appeals to a specific slice of your audience? Or do you want to create a best-seller for everyone?

Review your geography and traffic sources analytics to get a sense of where your visitors come from. Your current best-sellers and the search terms that customers use to find your site can help you decide which types of products your customers will get excited about.

Decide what kind of limit you'll set. Will you only release a limited quantity? Or only make it available for a short time? Find a way to make your new products feel exclusive so your customers will get excited for the release date. Consider using a limited availability label or giving early access to drops to email subscribers or subscribers to your site's members to drive demand.

Step 2 - Set a drop date

Set a date to release your products that feels reasonable for you and leaves enough time for you to promote it and build hype. When do potential customers visit your site the most? Review your traffic analytics to find out which day of the week your site tends to get more visits, and consider releasing your new products around the same time. 

Step 3 - Schedule your products

After you've set a date, take advantage of Commerce's schedule feature, which you can use to hide your product until it's ready to sell. After adding the new product:

1. Follow the steps to add a product and schedule it to publish at a specific time. 
2. When selecting a publication time, choose the exact date and time you want the product to be visible.
3. Repeat this with every product you'll release as part of your drop to ensure they all publish at the same time. To learn more, visit Adding products to your store.

The scheduled date and time are based on your time zone set in Language and region settings, not a visitor’s local time. Consider mentioning your time zone when advertising when your product drop will happen.

This is also a good time to review your checkout process. Will you offer a discount code as part of the drop? Do you have an option at checkout for new customers to join your mailing list? Ensure that everything is set up in advance to create a clear and quick checkout experience for your customers. To learn more about the customer journey, visit How customers buy your products.

Step 4 - Promote your drop

After your products are scheduled, it's time to start promoting and building anticipation for your drop. Sending email blasts through Email Campaigns is a great way to keep your audience informed about your upcoming products. You can also schedule campaigns to send ahead of the drop and again when the drop happens, or set up an automation that send an email as soon as someone takes a specific action, like a welcome email after signup or a thank you after purchasing.

However you announce your drop, ensure that you clearly communicate when the products will be live and how long they'll be available. If you're not setting a time limit, emphasize that you have limited quantities that could sell out quickly. Ensure that you also share your site's URL, so your future customers can bookmark it and have it ready to go when the products are live. 

Use Unfold and the Marketing Kit to create branded promotions for your social accounts. With Unfold, you can create unique stories to share on social media, which you can create in advance and share in the days leading up to your drop. When you switch to Unfold Pro, you can even create a brand kit for stories with your own custom colors, stickers, and fonts. Use the Marketing Kit to create marketing content using digital assets, such as images, videos, and .gifs, from your website. This content can then be saved locally on your device and resized to meet various specifications for sharing to social media channels, websites, online store product detail pages, Email Campaigns, etc. 

You can also use Squarespace's integration with Facebook and Instagram to sync your products so you can sell and advertise directly from posts, stories, and shops on your profile or page.

To promote the drop on your site, use our built-in tools to add an announcement bar, scrolling block, or promotional pop-up advertising the drop date. 

Step 5 - Track sales and fulfill orders

As soon as your products are live, it's time to focus on fulfilling orders. As an Admin or Store Manager, you'll automatically receive order notifications via email and you can push notifications to your mobile device through the Squarespace app. App notifications can also tell you when your inventory is low. You can fulfill orders from a computer or the app.

If you have a lot of orders to process and not enough staff to help, consider using a shipping or fulfillment extension to help with your orders. If you sell out, but plan to add more stock later, enable waitlists so your customers can sign up to be notified when the product is back in stock. 

Step 6 - Review your success

After the rush of sales and shipping, take some time to analyze how it went. Review your sales analytics for details like units sold, conversion rate, and average order values. You might also review your traffic sources to find out if a certain channel was most successful in driving traffic. All of these tools can help you stay strategic with future sales.  

Stay in touch with your new customers, whether that's through mailing lists or social media. Staying engaged with your audience makes them more likely to keep coming back to your site, and gets them excited for your next product drop.