One of the essential things to run a successful online business is managing inventory. You need to forecast to make sure your most popular products are always in stock. But what about those which are sold less often and sometimes become out of stock?
You definitely don't want to display sold-out products at the top of your collections, and neither drive any campaign traffic to their product pages.
The best way to handle sold-out inventory is to either hide it entirely or at least push it to the bottom of your collections. This guide will explore the first approach and learn how to hide products and their variants.
Option #1 – Use a third-party app
Several third-party apps can help you with managing your store inventory. Our recommendation is an app called Nada: Sort & Hide Out-of-Stock.
Nada: Sort & Hide Out-of-Stock automatically hides sold-out products by unpublishing them from the Online Store sales channel. But it also automatically puts them back online when they are available. On top of that, it creates redirects, so there are no 404 errors. So it essentially removes the disadvantages from option #2, #3, and #5.
The app starts at $4.99 per month, and you can take advantage of a 7-day free trial.
Other apps to try:
- Auto Hide Sold‑out Products by Zoocommerce
- Push Down & Hide Out of Stock by merchbees
- StockyPhi ‑ Hide Out Of Stock by Gypsyphi
For more options, check out the list of the best Shopify apps for hiding sold-out products.
Option #2 – Unpublish product from the sales channel(s)
Probably the easiest way to hide the product from your Shopify store is by unpublishing from a particular sales channel. In the case of an online store, the default channel name is Online Store (surprisingly).
To unpublish the product from the sales channel, follow these steps:
- Go to your product catalog and open details of a particular product
- In the top-right corner, click on Manage in the SALES CHANNELS AND APPS section
- Uncheck the desired channel, click Done, and Save
- And the product is hidden, and no one can purchase it anymore
Besides hiding the product from the storefront, it will also be hidden from a site search.
However, you need to keep in mind the disadvantages which are:
- Returning 404 error on the product page (Google doesn't like that at all!). It can be resolved via custom redirects
- It can be time-consuming in the case of dozens of products that you need to unpublish and republish again. Product import & export can save a lot of time
Option #3 – Set product status to draft
It is similar to option #1 with the difference that once the product is set to draft, it's not visible and is not purchasable at all channels. Disadvantages are the same.
To set the product status to draft, follow these steps:
- Go to your product catalog and open details of a particular product
- In the top-right corner, in the Product status section, click on Active drop-down and change it to Draft
- Click on Save, and the product is hidden everywhere
Option #4 – Set automatic collection rules
If you are using automatic collections, you can add a condition to display only products that are in stock. The significant advantages compared to the previous two methods are:
- No 404 errors (product pages are still accessible through direct links)
- No manual work, everything is automatic, and the product will become visible once it's available again
To set the inventory stock condition follow these steps:
- Go to your Shopify store admin > Products > Collections
- Select a particular collection, and in the section Conditions click on Add another condition. If you don't see Conditions section that means the collection is not automatic, but manual
- From the drop-down select Inventory stock + is greater than + 0
- Click on Save and that's all. The product will no longer be visible in your collection pages (i.e. yourstore.com/collections)
The disadvantage is that it doesn't work with manual collections, and it doesn't apply to site search.
Option #5 – Create automatic rules in Shopify Flow
Shopify Flow is an automation app built by Shopify which allows you to create simple workflows using the IF, THEN, and OTHERWISE rules. It works similarly to Zapier or Make. Once you add the app to your store you can start building your own workflows, or you can browse the public collection which has over 160 shared flows. For hiding and republishing products, the flow is called "Hide and republish products based on inventory level".
The main advantage is the automation and customization. But hiding of the product happens without a redirect, so any visitor of the product page will get a 404 error.
Another disadvantage is that Shopify Flow is available only for Standard, Advanced, and Plus plans. You can't use it if you are on Shopify Basic plan. You can learn more about Shopify Flow in our article "Flow is now available to Advanced Shopify merchants".
Bonus – Hiding sold-out variants only
The challenge is how to hide only a particular variant on the product page – not a whole product. Unfortunately, all options above work only when the whole product is sold out (i.e., all its variants).
It doesn't work if you want to hide a particular variant from a selector on your product page. Shopify platform doesn't allow a product variant to be unpublished or set to draft.
The solution is a bit trickier and requires some custom coding to your Shopify theme. You need to modify the code not to display the variant in the selector if it's out-of-stock.
If you are using any of these themes – Boundless, Brooklyn, Debut, Express, Minimal, Narrative, Simple, Supply, or Venture, go to the official Shopify guide on hiding sold-out variants. Keep in mind the guide is relevant only for hiding a particular product variant(s), not the product itself.
If you are not able to do edit the theme code yourself or using a different theme, feel free to contact us, and our agency team will be happy to look into it.
