Shopify Help Center suggests hiding out-of-stock Products with Collection conditions, an app or Shopify Flow. With Matrixify you can unpublish all out-of-stock Products from the Online Store with one Import, and hide only the sold-out Variants of Products that are still in stock.
Steps in short
- Export Products with ID, Handle, Total Inventory Qty and the Online Store Published and Published At columns.
- In the file keep only the Products with Total Inventory Qty of 0 or less and set Published for the Online Store to FALSE.
- Import the file to unpublish the out-of-stock Products from the Online Store.
- To hide only the sold-out Variants, Export Variant rows with Variant Inventory Qty and set Variant Published for the Online Store to FALSE on the Variants with 0.
1. Export Products with Total Inventory Qty
In the Matrixify app Home create a new Export by using the New Export button. Select the Matrixify: Excel format and press Select Sheets to select Products.
Click on the Products sheet card to expand it and select only these columns:
- From
Basic Columns–ID,HandleandTotal Inventory Qty. - From
Sales Channels–Published: ...andPublished At: .... Click theSelect ...button under the column group, checkOnline Storeand pressAdd.
ID tells the app which Product to update. Handle is there only to see which Product each row is.
Total Inventory Qty is the sum of the quantities of all Variants of the Product. A Product with sizes S at 0 and M at 3 has 3 and stays visible.
Filter Products published on the Online Store
Press the Filter button in the Products sheet card and add Published – equals to any of – Online Store to Export only the Products that are on the Online Store now.
Press Export, wait for the Export to finish and download the exported file.
2. Keep only out-of-stock Products in the file
Open the exported file. In Excel go to the Data tab and press Filter. In the Total Inventory Qty column show only the values above 0 and delete those rows.
Set Published: Online Store to FALSE in all rows. You can leave the Published At: Online Store dates as they are if there are any.
3. Import to unpublish out-of-stock Products
In the Matrixify app Home upload the file in the Import section. Once the file is analyzed, make sure that the sheet is detected as Products and the Product count looks correct. Total Inventory Qty shows as ignored – it is an export-only column, so it can stay in the file.
Press Import to start the Import. When it is finished, the Products are no longer on the Online Store. You can check it in the Shopify Admin, in the Publishing section of a Product.
4. Hide out-of-stock Variants in Shopify
Products with some Variants in stock stay on the Online Store. Their sold-out Variants can be hidden one by one – Shopify shows a Variant only when both the Product and the Variant are published on that channel.
Create a new Export with the Products sheet and select only these columns:
- From
Basic Columns–IDandHandle. - From
Inventory / Variants–Variant ID,Variant SKUandVariant Inventory Qty.Variant SKUis there only to see which Variant each row is. - From
Variant Sales Channels–Variant Published: ..., withOnline Storeselected underSelect ....
Add the filter Variant Inventory Qty – less than – 1. It exports every Product with at least one Variant at 0 or below, with all of its Variant rows.
In the exported file delete the rows with Variant Inventory Qty above 0 and set Variant Published: Online Store to FALSE in the rest. Then delete the Variant Inventory Qty column – otherwise the Import sets the stock back to the exported numbers.
Import the file the same way as in step 3. Only the Variants in the file are changed. If every Variant of a Product is unpublished, Shopify hides the whole Product on that channel.
Good to know
Total Inventory Qtyis also 0 for Products that do not track inventory, and for Products withVariant Inventory Policyset tocontinue, which customers can still buy. In the Variant Export, untracked Variants have an emptyVariant Inventory Qty. Check these rows before the Import.- The Import is a one-time change. To show restocked Products again, Export with the
Publishedfilter set tonot equal to any of–Online Storeand setPublished: Online StoretoTRUEfor the rows withTotal Inventory Qtyabove 0. - To hide them on other channels too, for example Google & YouTube, select those channels under
Select ...as well.
What to do next?
- Hide sold-out Products on all channels by setting their Status to Draft – bulk hide sold out Products from your Shopify store.
- Publish or unpublish Products on any Sales Channel – how to bulk edit Shopify Product Sales Channels.
- See all columns you can Export and Import in the Products documentation.
- Contact Matrixify support if you have questions.
