Shopify Coming Soon Pages That Collect Emails

How do you create a Shopify coming soon page that collects emails before launch?

You use two states together: Coming Soon puts the product into its pre-launch look, and Back in Stock (Notify Me) collects the email addresses. Coming Soon is a visual state — it replaces the Sold Out button with a non-clickable Coming Soon button, and it is deliberately not a form. The sign-up comes from Notify Me, whose button you can relabel to "Join Waitlist" so it reads like a launch rather than a restock.

That split is worth knowing before you build the page, because it decides what you configure. Most guides describe a "coming soon waitlist" as if it were one feature. It is two features. In Timesact you add both to a Customer Experience (Functionality → Add functionality), or build one Customer Experience for each, and assign it to the product from the Products page — and both can run on the same product.

What each state puts on the page

	Coming Soon	Notify Me (Back in Stock)
What replaces the buy button	A non-clickable Coming Soon button	A clickable sign-up button you can name "Join Waitlist"
Collects email addresses	No	Yes
What else the Customer Experience covers	Optional badge, optional page message, countdown timer	Product-page message, post-signup success message, countdown timer
When it is live	While the variant is out of stock in Shopify	While the variant is out of stock in Shopify

Both states switch on only while the variant shows zero inventory in Shopify. If the product still has stock, it stays purchasable and shows as On standby in the app — that status means the functionality is set up correctly and waiting for the stock level, not that something needs fixing. Once the variant's Shopify stock reaches 0, it goes Active on its own. Both are set per variant, so a product can carry one state on one size and a different state on another.

Which shape fits your launch?

Three setups cover almost every pre-launch page, and the right one depends on what you want to have on launch day.

Anticipation only. Coming Soon on its own. The product is visible, browsable and clearly not yet for sale. You end the pre-launch period with traffic and no list — right for a product you will announce through channels you already own.

A waitlist. Notify Me on its own, with the button renamed to "Join Waitlist". Shoppers sign up, and when you add stock in Shopify, everyone on the list gets an email. You end the pre-launch period with a list of people who asked to hear from you.

Both. Coming Soon carries the launch styling while Notify Me collects the sign-ups — the setup most launch pages want. Enable both features for the product, and make sure the product is Active in Shopify and both are switched on for the right variants.

Setting the page up

Start by enabling the Timesact App Embed on the theme you publish, in Shopify admin → Online Store → Themes → Customize → App Embeds, and click Save in the theme editor. The embed is what lets Timesact elements render, it is set per theme, and it takes effect once the theme is saved. If you later publish a different theme, enable it there too.

Then set the product itself:

1. Set the variant's Shopify inventory to 0, with inventory tracking on for that variant. Keep the product Active in Shopify and available on the Online Store sales channel, so it has a live storefront page. Tracking is what lets Timesact read the variant as out of stock, which is what puts it into its pre-launch state.
2. Add the product in Timesact. Finish the product's variants in Shopify first. Then create a Customer Experience, add Coming Soon, Back in Stock or both under Functionality → Add functionality, and assign that Customer Experience to the product or the specific variants from the Products page. The Collection option covers a whole collection at once.
3. Set the Coming Soon wording in the Customer Experience. This is where the customer-facing copy lives: the Coming Soon button text on the non-clickable button, and the optional Coming Soon badge and Coming Soon message, all on the Product page settings. The Customer Experience assigned to the variant is what actually renders, so the one you edit needs to be the one assigned there.
4. Set the Back in Stock wording. On the same Product page settings: the Back in Stock button text (this is where "Join Waitlist" goes), the message shoppers read, and the Success message they see after signing up in the Notify Me form. Then, under Functionality settings → Back in Stock, set the Quantity threshold — the minimum inventory level at which the alert goes out to subscribers.
5. Write the alert email and set it Live. The subject line and body live on the Notifications page, in the Notify Me email, separately from the Customer Experience. Publish the notification so it shows as Live rather than Draft — Live is the state that sends it.

If you are scheduling the launch rather than running it now, you can set a future start date for the variant — those dates follow the time zone set in Billing & Account → Store settings → Time zone, so set them against that clock rather than your local one.

There is no payment step anywhere in this setup, and that is by design: neither state is purchasable, so no Shopify purchase option or charge timing is involved. Those belong to preorders, which are a different state on the same product — Pre-order and Coming Soon don't run together on a variant, so moving a product to preorder means switching Coming Soon off for that variant and setting the preorder side up in its own right: assign a Customer Experience with Pre-order, whose Product page settings hold the product-page copy, whose When Pre-order shows setting decides when preorder is live, and whose Purchase option and Billing settings carry the charge timing.

What a shopper sees

A shopper landing on the product sees your Coming Soon button in place of Sold Out, with the badge and message you wrote, and a sign-up button they can actually use. They enter an email, get your success message, and that is the whole interaction — no account, no checkout.

When you add inventory in Shopify and hit your threshold, Timesact emails everyone who signed up, and the product becomes buyable again on its own. You do not switch anything off manually; the stock level does it.

What you see on your side

Sign-ups land on the subscriber list under Analytics → Notify Me, Back in Stock and Waitlist → Trends over time, where you scroll down to the subscriber records — and each subscriber moves from Pending to Sent once their alert goes out, so the list doubles as a record of who was told and when. You can export it to CSV whenever you want the underlying rows, or to bring the list into Brevo or whichever platform runs your campaigns. If that platform is Klaviyo, Timesact sends it a Timesact - Back in Stock Subscribed event for each sign-up, so your launch email goes out from the tool your other campaigns already use.

For demand signals across a whole launch — how many people landed, how many signed up, what converted after — Shopify Analytics and GA4 hold the traffic and order numbers, and the sign-up side sits in the app's Analytics tab.

If you are running the waitlist route and want the page to read as a launch instead of a restock, the Notify Me form and its wording are worth setting deliberately, and hiding the sold-out state before a launch covers the styling side in more depth.

Open your next launch to a list instead of an empty page

A pre-launch page that only builds anticipation ends when the product goes live. One that collects emails hands you a list of people who already raised their hand — and the setup is the same page, with one more feature switched on. Set the wording for both, write the alert email, and your next drop starts with an audience.

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FAQs

Does the Coming Soon button collect email addresses?

No. Coming Soon is a visual storefront state — it replaces the Sold Out button with a non-clickable Coming Soon button and does not include a form. To collect emails on a pre-launch product, enable Back in Stock (Notify Me) alongside it and rename the sign-up button to something like "Join Waitlist".

Can I use Back in Stock and Coming Soon on the same product?

Yes. A common setup is Coming Soon as the visual launch state with Back in Stock enabled to collect sign-ups. Keep the product Active in Shopify and make sure both are in the Customer Experience assigned to the variants you want them on.

Why does my Coming Soon product still show as purchasable?

Coming Soon switches on only while the variant is out of stock in Shopify. If the variant still has inventory, the product stays buyable and shows as On standby in the app. Set that variant's inventory to 0 and the Coming Soon button appears.

Where do I write the email that goes out when the product launches?

On the Notifications page, where the Notify Me email holds the subject line and body for the alert, and where you publish it so it shows as Live and sends. The Customer Experience covers what shoppers see on the product page — the button wording, the message and the post-signup confirmation — while the Notifications page covers the email itself.

Can I add a countdown timer to a Coming Soon product?

Yes. Turn on Enable timer in the Coming Soon product page settings and choose Countdown to a date or Countdown for a fixed time. The timer is a display: when it ends it hides, restarts or shows your own message, depending on what you pick under What should happen when the timer ends? — it doesn't switch the product to preorder on its own.