How to Hide Out of Stock Products in WooCommerce: A Complete Guide
Whether it’s a local boutique or a huge e-commerce site, having products that are not in stock displayed can negatively affect your consumer experience and even result in reduced conversions. If a more organized store design with a smoother consumer experience is what you are looking for, then having a plan in place for woocommerce hide out of stock products must be a key priority. In this article, we will discuss what hide out of stock products woocommerce is all about, how it can be done through settings, and how a woocommerce hide out of stock products plugin can offer more flexibility.
What Is ‘Hide Out of Stock WooCommerce’?
The “Hide Out of
When a product’s stock runs out in a WooCommerce store, it is generally marked as “Out of Stock,” but not removed from your store pages. As a default setting in a WooCommerce store, when a certain item is out of stock, it is still shown in a store’s catalog but with a different button for customers instead of “Add to Cart,” which is often labeled as “Read More.”
To prevent this problem, WooCommerce has settings and plugins available to allow woocommerce hide out of stock products from being included in the showcase of products in your store. By eliminating products unavailable for purchase, browsing becomes easier and limited to products they can currently purchase.
Why Hide Out of Stock Products in WooCommerce?
1. Improved Shopping Experience
Customers do not like clicking on products that they cannot actually purchase. By hiding out of stock products woocommerce, you make your catalog look more cleaned up and only feature products that you actually have in stock.
2. Store Layout Optimization
It is easier to navigate the catalogs when only the in-stock items are displayed. By browsing through the categories or searching for items, customers get quicker decision-making since the items that are not in stock do not appear on the page.
3. Lower Bounce Rates
Displaying out of stock products may result in abandonment, particularly on mobile devices. When you hide out of stock products on your woocommerce website, it will ensure that customers linger on your site longer and view the products available.
It may indirectly help with conversion rates and SEO rankings.
Native WooCommerce Function to Hide Unavailable Products
There is an in-built setting in WooCommerce to hide out of stock products without any plugin. Follow these steps:
• Go into WordPress → WooCommerce → Settings.
Click on the "Products" tab.
Next, open the Inventory settings.
Locate and check the box marked “Hide out of stock items from the catalog.”
Click Save changes.
However, this method has some limitations—it is an all-or-nothing approach. Either all out of stock items are hidden throughout the site, or all out of stock items are shown throughout the site. There is no provision for doing it based on a category, user role, and type of item.
Why Do We Need Hide Out of Stock Products WooCommerce Plugin?
Although using the default option provided by WooCommerce might do the trick for small e-commerce sites, many e-commerce owners need more functionality than what is provided. This is where a "hide out of stock products" Woocommerce plugin really helps.
Advantages of a Customized Plugin
In this
???? Selective Visibility: A plugin would allow you to hide unavailable products on some parts of your site while showing them on other parts. Say you could show them in search results but hide them on the front page.
???? Category & Tag Rules: Certain plugins enable you to hide out of stock products only on certain categories or tags. For example, WooCommerce hide out of stock products.
General ???? Auto-Unhide : When using advanced plugins, products will automatically reappear on the website once their stock has been replenished.
√ User Role Visibility: There are tools that enable you to conceal items that are no longer in stock only for some levels of users, for example, for guest users or for logged-in customers.
Recommended Plugins for Suppressing Out of Stock Products in WooCommerce WooSubscrptions
Here are a few popular workarounds to hide out of stock items:
1. Sort Hide Out of Stock for WooCommerce
Obeys these directives and is one of the most advanced hide out of stock products woocommerce plugins available, and this one will hide out of stock products and also give you the option of how they should act:
☑ Automatically hide unavailable products.
✅ Move out of stock products to the bottom or top of the product list.
✅ Personalize stock level thresholds.
✅ Control visibility via category, tag, or role.
√ Redirect visitors from out of stock pages to a custom URL of your choice.
2. Hide or Show Out of Stock Products for WooCommerce (Free)
If a finer level of control than what comes with WooCommerce is what you need, this plugin allows you to choose where you want out of stock items to be shown:
✔ Control the visibility depending on the context (Shop page or everywhere).
✔ Multiple product data accessibility through mass processing.
✔ Leverages the built-in product visibility options provided by WooCommerce’s update features.
3. Category-based Visibility Plugins
Plugins such as "Hide Out of Stock by Category" help you target particular areas in your store. You might hide out of stock items in electronics but show out of stock accessories if only for cataloging purposes.
Best Practices in Hiding Out of Stock Products
Below are some tips that can be used while executing woocommerce hide out of stock products:
"Don't hide products completely if SEO is a consideration."
For some products, even if they are not in stock, there is still some organic search traffic. If you use SEO, you might want to show these products with a “Out of Stock — Check Back Soon” notice instead of hiding them completely. You can use plugins such as the “free visibility manager” to control this visibility.
Optimize Visibility Automation
If you find yourself restocking certain items quite frequently, having a plugin that automatically unhides items once inventory comes back in is a tremendous time saver.
Utilizing Redirects for Unavailable Product Pages Instead of allowing customers to land on pages which display ‘Out of Stock,’ a custom redirect can be implemented to the main shop page and any related product category. Conclusion Controlling visibility of inventory is essential for ensuring you manage a professional and friendly WooCommerce store. There are easy-to-use settings that enable you to woocommerce hide out of stock products globally. Deeper control is possible through the use of the hide out of stock products woocommerce plugin.
