Why and How to Hide Out of Stock Products in WooCommerce

Among the necessary tasks while running a WooCommerce Store include keeping the product catalog clean and relevant. Besides being confusing to the customers, out-of-stock displayed products may disrupt their experience of shopping. A dedicated plugin for hiding out-of-stock products in WooCommerce will enable you to perform this task of product visibility automatically, showing only items available, keeping the out-of-stock ones smartly handled.

Among the helpful tools in this sense, Sort | Hide Out of Stock by Extify Plugins stands out. The extension lets you either hide or sort products that are out of stock using flexible rules. This way, you can keep your storefront feeling renewed, relevant, and customer-oriented.
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Why Hiding Out-of-Stock Products Matters

Better Customer Experience

When customers browse through your store, they want to see what is available to purchase. Showing unavailable items will lead to disappointment, wasted clicks, and higher bounce rates.

Improved In-Store Presentation

A catalog full of items that aren’t in stock makes your store look poorly maintained. Hiding or demoting those items sharpens your store’s visual appeal and conveys professionalism.

Higher Conversion Potential
By placing in-stock items front and center, you help guide shoppers toward products they can order right away-increasing the likelihood of conversion.

Automated inventory handling

With the WooCommerce hide out of stock products plugin, there is no need to manually take products offline when they're sold out or to remember to republish them once they're back in stock.
⚙️ Key Features of the Sort | Hide Out-of-Stock Plugin

The Sort | Hide Out-of-Stock extension provides a robust set of features to control how out-of-stock items are handled in your WooCommerce store:

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Hide Out-of-Stock Products: Automatically remove unavailable items from shop listings.

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Smart Sorting: Push out-of-stock items either to the top or bottom of the listing.

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Auto-Unhide: Items that are restocked appear again, automatically following your rules.

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Role-Based Visibility: You can hide or show out-of-stock products to different user roles; for example, guests and logged-in users.

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Category and Tag Rules: Hiding/sorting rules can apply only to certain categories or tags.

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Custom Redirects: In case a customer lands on an out-of-stock product page, you can redirect them to your shop, home page, or a custom URL.

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Stock Thresholds: Specify what stock level constitutes being "out of stock."

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Out-of-Stock Report Dashboard: View a live report of all products currently hidden or out of stock in your store.

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How to Configure WooCommerce to Hide Out-of-Stock Products ????️

Here's a step-by-step guide to configuring out-of-stock visibility settings with this plugin:

Install and Activate

Purchase the plugin at WooCommerce.com.

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Install via WordPress Admin → Plugins → Add New → Upload

Activate the plugin.

Configure Hide Settings

Go to WooCommerce → Stock Management → Hide Out-of-Stock

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Set your stock threshold - the number below which a product is considered "out of stock."

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Whether to exclude storewide or by category/tag, choose the appropriate option.

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Configure the visibility of user roles, determining whether certain roles should or should not see out-of-stock products.

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Setup your options to redirect users who try to visit a hidden product page to the main shop, home page, or a custom URL.

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Configure Sorting Rules

Go to WooCommerce → Stock Management → Sort – Out of Stock

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Choose your Sorting Mode:

All Product Sorting: one rule applies globally

Category-Based Sorting: set different rules per category

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Set the Global Sort Order, such as:

Out of stock at bottom (ASC/DESC)

Out of stock at top
Default order

Preview your sorting option with the Live Sorting Preview tool.
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Use the Out-of-Stock Report
Use this view to see which of your products are hidden and schedule restocks.

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Best Practices for Using Hide Out-of-Stock Products in WooCommerce

Maintain Customer Trust: Use redirects so customers who try to view a sold-out item don’t get a 404 page — guide them to products available.
Use Role-Based Visibility: Show out-of-stock products to admins or wholesalers and hide them from regular customers.

Thresholds of Leverage: Establish a threshold value when a product is deemed to be out of stock, especially if using a reserved stock or backorders.
Hidden Stock Monitoring: Utilize the plugin's dashboard for reviewing hidden products and determining when to restock or remove them permanently.

Balance Sorting vs. Hiding: If you do not want to hide products completely, pushing them at the bottom will still be able to declutter your store without losing SEO value.
Business Impact of Hiding Out-of-Stock Products

Improved Shop Experience
Your catalog stays clean and focused, which greatly enhances shopper satisfaction.
Increased Conversion Rates

Unavailable items, when removed, reduce distraction and encourage purchases of in-stock products.

Better Inventory Management Real-time control and automatic un-hiding contribute to accuracy in store listings. Segmentation Capabilities Role-based visibility refers to providing different customer types, such as guests and wholesale buyers, with unique experiences. Reduced Frustration By making such redirects on unavailable products, you preserve engagement and reduce bounce rates. SEO Considerations Hidden out-of-stock products do not show up in your catalog; however, this does not mean that single-product pages disappear from search engines. Use custom redirects to route users and bots to relevant pages, avoiding 404s and enhancing UX. Use the hidden stock report to determine which items may be good candidates for restoration or SEO-focused pages later. ❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Q1: Will hidden products reappear when they are restocked? Yes - the plugin supports auto-unhiding when stock reaches your defined threshold. WooCommerce Q2: Can I hide out-of-stock items only for certain user roles? Of course, you can. You can set role-based visibility so only selected users-for example, logged-in customers, wholesalers-see out-of-stock products. WooCommerce Q3: Can I hide only certain categories of out-of-stock products? Yes. The plugin can sort or hide the rules using categories or tags. WooCommerce Q4: What happens if a customer lands on an out-of-stock product page? You can redirect them to a custom URL, your shop page, or your store's homepage. WooCommerce Q5: What are the out-of-stock products sorting options? You can sort out-of-stock items to the top or bottom of product listings in ascending/descending order, or keep default sorting. WooCommerce Q6: Is there a report to see all hidden or out-of-stock items? Yes-the plugin includes a dashboard to view and manage all hidden products. WooCommerce Q7: Does the plugin allow only for hiding products if the stock falls below the minimum mark? Yes - you can define a stock threshold where products are regarded as “out of stock. WooCommerce Q8: Do I need to manually hide/unhide products? No - the plugin automatically hides and re-publishes based on your rules. WooCommerce +1 Q9: Does this affect SEO negatively by hiding products? If it is hidden via catalog but still accessible via a direct link, SEO remains intact. Use redirects to manage the visibility accordingly. Q10: Does this plugin work with custom themes or page builders? Yes. It works through WooCommerce's stock-management system, so it should work with most themes. (As with any plugin, test after installation.)