If you run a store on WooCommerce, displaying out-of-stock products is frustrating for customers. They may click on items, only to find they cannot purchase them, which negatively impacts user experience and could erode customer trust. Fortunately, WooCommerce has options to hide out-of-stock items, and you can expand the control with specialized plugins. In this article, we are going to explore how to “hide out of stock products WooCommerce” stores, why doing this is important, available methods including “hide out of stock products WooCommerce plugin,” and best practices for store owners.
Why woocommerce hide out of stock products in WooCommerce?
By default, WooCommerce will list products in your store whether or not they are in stock. Out-of-stock products typically show a “Read more” button instead of “Add to cart,” but remain visible in catalog listings, category pages, search results, and even related or upsell areas.
This default behavior can be harmful:
The customer could be wasting time viewing unavailable products, resulting in frustration.
When the storefront appears cluttered, or outdated, this lessens perceived professionalism.
Items not in stock distract from actually purchasable products and reduce conversion rates.
For stores with large product catalogs or regular changes in stock, inventory visibility is difficult to manage manually.
Hiding out-of-stock items ensures your customers are only shown what they actually can buy, speeding up shopping, minimizing disappointment, and making your store much more cohesive.
Native WooCommerce Setting: Quick and Easy Hide Out-of-Stock Products
For most store owners, the easiest solution is baked right into WooCommerce. Here’s how you activate it:
In your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Inventory.
Find “Hide out-of-stock items from the catalog” option, sometimes under the stock visibility or out-of-stock visibility settings.
Check the box and save changes.
Once this is enabled:
It removes out-of-stock products and their variations from shop pages, category listings, and search results, including related/upsell/cross-sell sections of product loops.
In the case of variable products, if all variations are out of stock, the product will no longer show up within listings. If some variations are out of stock, you may see only the ones available depending on configuration.
This is the perfect method for store owners who want a no-code, quick solution.
When You Might Need More Control: How to Use a Hide Out-of-Stock Plugin
In stores with dynamic inventory, big product catalogs, or special requirements, the native option may not be enough. It is in these circumstances when a dedicated “hide out of stock products WooCommerce plugin” will come in handy.
One such plugin is the extension known as Sort | Hide Out-of-Stock for WooCommerce.
What advanced features do these plugins offer?
Automatic hiding of sold-out products from your store catalog.
Smart Sorting: Instead of hiding, you can push out-of-stock items to the bottom or top of product listings. It is helpful if you want to show a complete range of your products but give more emphasis on in-stock items.
Automatic unhide when products are restocked, so you don’t have to manually re-add them.
Category or tag-based rules: You can hide out-of-stock items only within certain categories or tags, offering a granular level of control over the item’s visibility.
Role-based visibility: Show/hide out of stock items based on user roles (for example, hidden for guests, but visible for shop manager or wholesale customer).
Custom Redirect Options: If a buyer lands on to a product page which happens to be out-of-stock, you can opt to redirect him to the shop page, homepage, or a custom URL instead of showing an unavailable product.
Stock threshold settings: Treat a product as “out of stock” based on a custom threshold, not just zero stock. Useful for stores dealing in limited-quantity inventory, or pre-order/back-order scenarios.
With such a plugin, you have many more possibilities than with WooCommerce’s native option, which is especially valuable in case of a mid-to-large store or stores with complex stock/visibility needs.
Variations & Bundles: Out of Stock Variations & Complex Products Hiding
One challenge many stores face is when products have many variations such as size or color. By default, WooCommerce might show them even though some are out of stock — though “Add to Cart” is disabled. That can confuse customers.
Additional plugins or custom code can be used to:
Some tutorials show how to programmatically filter out out-of-stock variations so that only in stock variants appear, providing a cleaner shopping experience.
Some of the extensions for product bundles or plugins with features of ‘frequently bought together’ support hiding out-of-stock items from within bundles, making sure that bundles only contain available products.
If you expect frequent variation-level stock changes or use bundles and composite products, carefully consider whether you need built-in WooCommerce settings, simple plugins, or more advanced variation-oriented plugins.
Best Practices When Hiding Out-of-Stock Products
To reap the most benefits of hiding out-of-stock items, follow the hints below:
Use the native setting if you want simplicity and minimal maintenance. For small stores or low-variation catalogs, this may be adequate.
For dynamic stores, implement a plugin-based approach. Plugins offer the automation of hide/unhide, sort, and redirect, hence reducing manual effort.
Combine with variation-level controls when necessary. If you have a lot of product variations, make sure that your approach hides the out-of-stock variant cleanly to create a better user experience.
Beware of cache and conflicts with themes/plugins: Sometimes, another plugin or the site’s theme can take precedence over WooCommerce’s behavior; after enabling hide settings, clearing caches or testing visibility is often needed to confirm effectiveness.
Keep search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience in mind: Hiding products removes them from the catalog listings, but the product pages (URLs) remain accessible if visited directly, preserving SEO value while keeping the storefront clean.
If selling limited-edition or drop-sale items, hide out-of-stock items until restocked. This avoids frustration for customers and clutter of “sold out”.
When Hiding Out-of-Stock Items Is Not Ideal
There are situations where hiding out-of-stock items may not be the best:
If you have a store with limited editions or frequent restocks, showing sold-out items (labeled as such) can create urgency or demand.
If your customers want to bookmark products and be notified when they restock, removing the product from the catalog may reduce the chances of revisiting it. When there are several variants of a product, and some of them are in stock, poor hiding may be bad for the user experience because all variants will be hidden even if some are in stock. In these cases, you might want to try using plugins that sort instead of entirely hiding the out-of-stock products, or showing “Out of Stock” badges instead of removing the product entirely. Overview: Concealing out-of-stock items helps clean and efficient stores. Hiding products out of stock greatly enhances the user experience for most WooCommerce stores, reduces confusion, and keeps your catalog relevant. A quick solution is available with WooCommerce’s built-in setting. For those stores that need further flexibility-like role-based visibility, sorting, automatic unhiding, category-level rules, or even redirects-it’s much better to have a dedicated “hide out of stock products WooCommerce plugin”. When done thoughtfully-with cache cleared, variations handled, and with SEO in mind-hiding out-of-stock products helps you present a cleaner, more professional storefront that focuses on what customers can actually purchase today.