Customer Price Drop Alerts

Why price alerts recover revenue

A large portion of shoppers who view a product page without buying are not disinterested — they're price-sensitive. They want the product, but not at the current price. Without a mechanism to bring them back at the right moment, that intent evaporates and is often converted by a competitor.

Price alerts solve this by capturing the shopper's intent at the moment it's highest (when they're already on your product page) and converting it at the moment your price aligns with their expectations. Merchants using price alerts typically see a 15–30% recovery rate on alert sends — meaning roughly one in four people who receive an alert click through and purchase.

Adding the subscribe widget to your product page

Like the compliance badge, the subscribe widget is installed via Theme App Extensions for Online Store 2.0 themes.

1. In the Oriens app, go to Price Alerts in the left sidebar.
2. Click Add widget to theme. The Shopify Theme Editor will open.
3. Navigate to a Product page template.
4. Click Add block in the Product information section and select Oriens Price Alert Subscribe.
5. Drag the block to a position below the Add to Cart button — this placement converts best, as shoppers who are about to leave the "buy" action are the most motivated to subscribe.
6. Click Save.

The widget renders as a compact inline form: an email input field and a "Notify me when price drops" button. It's responsive and inherits your theme's font and color variables automatically.

How the subscription process works for customers

Here's what a shopper sees and does from start to finish:

1. Arrives on your product page. The subscribe widget is visible below the Add to Cart button.
2. Enters their email address and clicks "Notify me". The widget records the product, the variant they had selected, the price at that moment, and their email.
3. Receives a confirmation email from Oriens (or from your Klaviyo account, if integrated). The email confirms which product and price they've subscribed to and includes an unsubscribe link specific to that subscription.
4. When the price drops below the subscribed price, the shopper receives a price drop notification email with a direct link back to the product page.
5. After being notified, the subscription is considered fulfilled. If the price drops again later, the shopper would need to re-subscribe to be notified again.

How alerts are triggered

Oriens monitors your product prices continuously. An alert is triggered when a variant's active price falls strictly below the price at which a subscriber signed up. For example:

• A customer subscribes to a product at €89.99.
• You later reduce the price to €79.99.
• Oriens detects the change (within minutes of the Shopify webhook firing) and queues an alert send to that subscriber.

If you set a compare-at price (creating a "sale" in Shopify's UI) but the actual product price doesn't change, no alert is sent — subscribers are watching the real charged price, not the compare-at.

Alerts are batched and sent in near-real time after Oriens confirms the price change is stable (not an accidental save that gets immediately reverted).

Sending options: built-in email vs Klaviyo

Built-in email sender (Starter plan and above)

On the Starter plan, Oriens sends alert emails from a branded Oriens address using a clean, minimal template with your store's logo and name. The email includes:

• The product image, title, and variant
• The original (subscribed) price and the new lower price
• A "Shop now" button linking directly to the product page
• An unsubscribe link

This requires zero setup and works immediately after installing the widget.

Klaviyo integration (Starter and Growth plans)

If you use Klaviyo for email marketing, you can route price alert sends through your Klaviyo account. This gives you full control over the email design, lets you trigger flows with advanced logic (e.g., only send if the customer hasn't purchased in 90 days), and keeps all email sends within your Klaviyo reporting.

See the Klaviyo Integration documentation for setup instructions.

GDPR considerations

Price alert subscriptions involve storing a customer's email address alongside their product interest and price threshold. Under GDPR this is considered personal data processing and requires a lawful basis — in this case, legitimate interest or consent.

Oriens handles this as follows:

• Consent language: The subscribe widget displays a brief consent notice below the subscribe button (customizable in settings). Default text: "By subscribing, you agree to receive a one-time price drop notification for this product. We will not use your email for other purposes."
• Single-purpose use: Subscriber emails collected via the widget are used only for price drop notifications. They are not added to your general marketing list unless you configure a Klaviyo flow that explicitly does so.
• Unsubscribe: Every confirmation email and alert email includes a one-click unsubscribe link. Clicking it immediately removes the subscription from Oriens' database — no confirmation step, no dark patterns.
• Data retention: Active subscriptions are retained until the alert fires or the subscriber unsubscribes. Unfired subscriptions older than 12 months are automatically purged. You can also delete individual subscriber records manually from the Oriens dashboard.

Viewing subscribers in the dashboard

Navigate to Price Alerts › Subscribers in the Oriens dashboard. The table shows:

• Subscriber email address
• Product and variant they subscribed to
• The price at which they subscribed
• The date they subscribed
• Status: Active (waiting for a price drop), Notified (alert was sent), or Unsubscribed

You can search by email, filter by product, and export the list as a CSV. To delete a specific subscriber's data (e.g., in response to a GDPR deletion request), click the three-dot menu on their row and select Delete subscriber.

Alert limits per plan

On the Starter plan, if you reach 500 sends in a calendar month, additional alert sends are queued and held until the next billing cycle. You'll receive an in-app notification when you're approaching the limit. Upgrading to Growth removes the cap immediately — queued alerts are sent within an hour of upgrading.

Testing the alert system

Before relying on the system in production, it's a good idea to do a full end-to-end test:

1. Pick a low-traffic product in your store (or create a test product with a Draft status so it's not visible to customers).
2. Visit the product page and enter your own email address in the Oriens subscribe widget.
3. Check your inbox for the subscription confirmation email. If it doesn't arrive within 5 minutes, check your spam folder and verify your sending domain settings in Oriens › Settings › Email.
4. In Shopify, reduce the product price by at least £/€/$ 0.01 below the price you subscribed at.
5. Return to the Oriens dashboard. Under Price Alerts › Subscribers, you should see your subscription status change to Notified within a few minutes.
6. Check your inbox for the price drop alert email.

Remember to revert the test price and delete your test subscription afterwards.