Sold-out items on Square Online: show, hide or mark them
Last updated:
An item can show as sold out on your Square Online site for two different reasons, and the settings for each live in different places. Here is how it works, and how to choose between showing and hiding sold-out items.
Two ways an item becomes sold out
- Stock count reaches zero. If you track the item by stock count, Square lowers the count with every sale in person and online. At zero, the variation is sold out everywhere that location sells.
- You mark it sold out. If you track by availability (no count), you mark the item or a single variation as sold out yourself, in Square Dashboard or on your point of sale.
Sold-out status is per variation and per location. A T-shirt can be sold out in Medium and still on sale in Large.
Mark an item sold out by hand
- In Square Dashboard, open Items (Items & services, Items & menus or Items & inventory, depending on your account) and then the Item library.
- Open the item. For an item with variations, open the variation.
- Under the inventory section, change the location's availability from Available to Sold out.
- Click Done, then Save.
On the point of sale app the same switch is called "Mark as sold out at this location" under Manage stock.
Watch out: availability can reset by itself
With availability tracking, Square's help says an item marked sold out becomes available again at the end of each business day unless you choose a reset time. If you are really out until a delivery arrives, set "Choose a time to make for sale again" to the delivery date. Square also lets you schedule the restock in advance, which is handy if you know when stock lands.
Show or hide sold-out items?
In Square Dashboard under Online > Items (or Shared Settings) > Item Preferences you will find two switches:
- Out of stock indicator (under Item statuses) shows an "Out of stock" badge on items with no stock.
- Display out of stock items on site (under Stock settings) decides whether sold-out items stay on the site at all.
On some newer sites these settings sit in the site editor instead, under the item list's badges.
| Keep sold-out items visible | Hide them | |
|---|---|---|
| Links from Google, social posts and emails | Keep working | Lead to a missing page while hidden |
| Shoppers who want it | Can see it is coming back, or ask to be told | Never find out |
| Shop looks | Can look bare if most items are out | Only buyable items show |
For items you will restock, keeping them visible with a clear badge usually works better: the page keeps its search ranking, and a shopper who came for that item has a reason to come back. Hide items you will not sell again.
Make the sold-out page useful
- Say when you expect it back, if you know, in the description.
- Link to similar items that are in stock.
- Give shoppers a way to hear when it is back. Square Online has no built-in back-in-stock alert, so see how to tell shoppers when an item is back.
Sources
- Square Support: Mark items and modifiers as sold out
- Square Support: Manage item availability
- Square Support: Schedule inventory restocks
- Square Support: Customize your online store site elements (badges)
- Square Community: Item Preferences, "Out of stock indicator" and "Display out of stock items on site"