Inventory management is key to running a successful online store. If not handled properly, product outages can result in a poor customer experience and lost sales.
Shopify, by default, keeps out-of-stock products visible in your store unless you take action to hide them. This means customers will see unavailable products, get frustrated, and have a bad impression of your brand.
Managing the visibility of out-of-stock products is important for customer satisfaction and loyalty. By hiding unavailable products, you can focus your customers’ attention on products they can buy, drive more sales, and improve your store overall.
Easily hide out-of-stock products with this workflow from MESA.
Topics:
Out-of-stock management in Shopify
When products go out of stock, Shopify shows them to customers unless you take action to hide them. Leaving sold-out products on display can hurt your store big time, as it can lead to a bad brand reputation and lost repeat sales.
Customers who see out-of-stock products will get frustrated and leave your store to shop elsewhere. This means lost sales and reduced customer satisfaction and loyalty. By managing inventory visibility properly, you can minimize these negative effects and ensure a positive shopping experience for your customers.
Store owners face common challenges in managing inventory visibility across multiple sales channels. Balancing SEO with customer-centric inventory management is tough.
But with the right strategies and tools, like MESA, you can simplify the process with a simple workflow.
Start with this workflow template:
MESA Template ID
update-product-status-when-variant-out-of-stock
Step by step: How to hide sold-out products in Shopify
Time needed: 5 minutes
Following this step-by-step process to ensure your store always shows only available products.
Detect variant out of stock
Monitor your Shopify store’s variants to identify when any variant goes out of stock. This triggers the workflow to begin the process of updating product information.
Retrieve product information
Fetch the product details from Shopify using the product ID. This step ensures you have the necessary information to update the product’s status later in the process.
Count matching variants
Check how many variants match the condition of being out of stock. If there is at least one variant out of stock, the workflow will proceed to the next steps.
Filter out-of-stock condition
Ensure that the count of out-of-stock variants is less than or equal to zero. This step acts as a decision point to verify if any product status updates are needed.
Update product status
Modify the product details to inform customers that the product is currently out of stock. The product description is updated with a message indicating its unavailability.
Unpublish product or collection
Remove the product or its collection from the online store’s publication to prevent it from being sold while out of stock. This step ensures customers are not misled about product availability.
Test, then turn your workflow “On”
Give your workflow a test run to confirm it’s ready, then activate it to run every time a product is updated on your store.
Related workflow templates
MESA Template ID
send-slack-alert-when-product-out-of-stock
MESA Template ID
email-notification-shopify-product-out-of-stock
Why hide out-of-stock products?
Managing out-of-stock product visibility in your Shopify store is key to a great customer experience and maximizing sales. Removing unavailable products from your store can prevent customers from being disappointed and frustrated when they come across products they can’t buy. This thoughtful approach to inventory management lets you show only available products and simplify your customers’ browsing and buying process.
Hiding out-of-stock products helps focus your customers on the products they can interact with and buy. When shown a mix of available and sold-out products, customers can get distracted or discouraged, which may result in higher bounce rates and lower conversion rates. By showing only buyable inventory, you’re guiding customers to products they can add to cart and checkout, increasing the chances of successful transactions and revenue.
Plus, hiding out-of-stock products makes for a more streamlined and user-friendly site navigation. Having unavailable products in search results and category pages can clutter the interface and make it harder for customers to find what they’re looking for. By removing these obstacles, you create a more intuitive browsing environment that satisfies customers, keeps them on the site longer, and ultimately drives more sales.
While hiding out-of-stock products has many benefits for customer experience and sales performance, it’s important to tread carefully with the SEO implications. Search engines like Google rely on your product pages to determine relevance and authority. Removing these pages completely can result in loss of backlinks and a decrease in organic traffic. To mitigate these risks, consider implementing 301 redirects for hidden product pages to guide visitors to relevant in-stock products.
Seasonal and pre-order products
Managing out-of-stock visibility for seasonal products and pre-order items requires a more subtle approach. For seasonal products, consider archiving during off-peak periods to keep the store clean and easy to re-activate when demand picks up. This archiving will keep your brand looking polished and retain the SEO value of your seasonal product pages.
For pre-order products, keeping them visible in your store even during temporary stock outages can be beneficial. By being transparent about the pre-order status and providing clear shipping estimates, you can capitalize on customer anticipation and sell ahead of time. You can implement a pre-order system through Shopify’s built-in features, third-party apps, or custom coding for your store.
Common questions about hiding out-of-stock products
Managing SEO, seasonal products, and pre-order strategies can be tricky. Still, with the proper knowledge and tools, you can make informed decisions that align with your business and customer expectations.
What is the impact on SEO when hiding out-of-stock products?
Hiding out-of-stock products can hurt your SEO by removing indexed pages that drive organic traffic. To avoid this, use 301 redirects to guide visitors to similar in-stock products or keep the pages live but labeled as “Out of Stock.” Features like restock dates or waitlists can maintain customer interest and preserve SEO value.
How to handle seasonal items?
Archive out-of-season products to keep your catalog focused on in-stock items. Label these archived pages with “Returning Soon” to preserve SEO value and build anticipation. When the season returns, restoring these products and capitalizing on the interest is easy.
How to manage pre-orders while hiding out-of-stock products?
Enable pre-orders to capture demand for sold-out items. Use Shopify’s pre-order features or third-party apps to allow purchases before restocking. Communicate shipping timelines and keep customers updated to build trust and maintain engagement.
What you should do now
Whenever you’re ready…here are 4 ways MESA can help you get more done:
Sign up for MESA. The best way to get started is sign up for MESA today. Every plan includes the first 7-days free so you can be assured your workflow is running properly.
Browse pre-made templates. Our customizable workflow templates are a great way to get started more quickly.
Talk to our automation experts. If you need help personalizing any workflow template, guidance how to make any automation or, simply want us to make your workflow, we can help.
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