8 Best Shopify Apps to Hide Out-of-Stock Items in Real Time
Updated April 20, 2023.
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Although running out of stock is common in online retail stores, it can negatively impact your business in various ways. These include dissatisfied customers, lost revenue, reputation damage, increased costs for quick stocking, and errors in demand forecasting. In fact, studies have found that retailers in the US alone lose over $1 trillion in revenue annually due to out-of-stocks and overstock.
One of the best ways to manage this problem and minimize losses is to hide the sold-out items in your store. While a variety of Shopify apps claim to execute this process seamlessly, not all of them are worthwhile. To help you choose the best app, we've gathered a list of the top 8 apps that can hide OOS items in real time.
Our Top Shopify Apps to Hide Out-of-Stock Items at a Glance
- Out-of-Stock Police - Best App Overall
- Stoclean: Out-of-Stock Cleaner - Best App for Quick Installation
- Wipeout Hide Out of Stock - Best Free Plan
- AutoHider: Sold Out Products - Best App for Stock Notifications
- Push Down & Hide Out of Stock - Best App for Page Redirects
- Stockyphi – Hide Out of Stock - Best App for Multi-Location Stores
- Ouiteo: Sort and Hide Sold Out - Best App for Customization
- Nada | Sort & Hide Sold Out - Best App for Shopify Plus
1. Out-of-Stock Police - Best App Overall
KeepShoppers Score: 9.9
Key Features
- Real-time inventory tracking
- Automated purchase order creation
- Historical data analysis
- User-friendly interface
The Out-of-Stock Police app helps you to hide out-of-stock items in your online store and prevent customers from making buying unavailable items. Its main capabilities include real-time tracking, automatic hiding and unhiding of OOS items, and customizable settings to improve customer experience in your store.
Why We Liked It
Having thoroughly analyzed the app, we've rated it as the best because of its outstanding features for hiding out-of-stock products, data-driven analytics, and affordability. The app's user-friendly interface makes it a breeze to use, while its powerful capabilities let you quickly and easily hide out-of-stock products in the way that suits you best—for example, you can hide products on all channels or online stores only.
Pros
- Real-time inventory tracking and alerts
- Customizable settings and automated purchase order creation
- Multi-channel integration
- Historical data analysis
- User-friendly interface
Cons
- Occasional technical glitches
» Read the full Out-of-Stock Police review
2. Stoclean - Best App for Quick Installation
KeepShoppers Score: 9.6
Key Features
- Real-time inventory tracking
- Barcode scanning
- Sales forecasting
- Automated purchase order
Stoclean is designed to help you streamline your inventory management process and prevent stockouts. The app also provides advanced analytics and forecasting features to help you make data-driven decisions about your inventory levels.
Why We Liked It
What we like most about this app is its hassle-free one-click-installation feature, which has helped the app climb the ladder in the market. This feature allows retailers to streamline their inventory management process more easily, improving their overall efficiency.
Pros
- Quick installation process
- Real-time inventory tracking
- Automated purchase order
- Multi-channel integration
Cons
- Limited customization options
- Lacks more recent reviews
3. Wipeout - Best Free Plan
KeepShoppers Score: 9.6
Key Features
- Hide out-of-stock products
- Customizable messages
- Automatic updates
- Free plan
Wipeout Hide Out of Stock can help you improve your customers' experience by hiding out-of-stock products. With customizable messages, automatic updates, and a simple installation process, the app offers a cost-effective solution for retailers looking to improve their inventory management processes.
Why We Liked It
Wipeout Hide Out of Stock stands tall among the competition because of its free plan. Offering a variety of features such as customizable messages, hiding out-of-stock products, automatic updates, and a simple installation process, the free plan makes this app a suitable option for small businesses and retailers with limited funds.
Pros
- Free plan available
- Easy installment and setup
- Real-time automatic updates
- User-friendly interface
Cons
- Limited features on the free plan
- Not suitable for large businesses
4. AutoHider - Best App for Stock Notifications
KeepShoppers Score: 9.4
Key Features
- Hides sold-out products
- Customizable messages
- Stock notifications
- Easy to install
Helping you hide out-of-stock products for enhanced customer experience, AutoHider: Sold Out Products is a solid ally for improving your store's performance. The app offers a competitive solution by providing different features such as real-time updates, stock notifications, and custom messages.
Why We Liked It
Among this app's various useful capabilities, we especially love its stock notifications feature. With the ability to set up low-stock and sold-out notifications, this app allows you to manage your inventory more effectively and reduce the chances of customers encountering an out-of-stock product.
Pros
- Customizable messages for a better user experience
- Real-time updates
- Low-stock and sold-out notifications
- Affordable pricing
Cons
- Limited features
- May be complex for some users
5. Push Down & Hide Out of Stock - Best App for Page Redirects
KeepShoppers Score: 9.5
Key Features
- Pushes down and hides OOS products from main listings
- Redirects to a related product when clicking on an OOS product
- Customizable messages
- Real-time updates to hide OOS products
Push Down & Hide Out of Stock uses tried SEO practices to hide out-of-stock and boost your store's performance. Along with a pushdown effect, page redirects, and customizable messages, this app offers real-time updates to help you streamline your collection sorting.
Why We Liked It
Our favorite features of this app include its redirecting and pushdown effect, which not only reduces your customers' frustration but also benefits your store's overall SEO. By redirecting customers to related pages, you can increase your page views and reduce bounce rates, significantly improving your search engine rankings.
Pros
- Hides OOS items with its pushdown effect
- Reduces customer frustration by redirecting
- Increases page views
- Updates product availability in real-time
Cons
- Not useful for small product catalogs
- Requires constant updates and maintenance
6. Stockyphi - Best App for Multi-Location Stores
KeepShoppers Score: 9.5
Key Features
- Real-time inventory management
- Hide out-of-stock products
- Multi-location support
- Bulk actions for updating stock levels and hiding/unhiding products
Stockyphi – Hide Out of Stock is specially designed to streamline the process of inventory management for retailers with multiple locations. The app allows you to manage your inventory in real time, hide OOS products, and perform bulk actions to improve the shopping experience at multiple inventory locations.
Why We Liked It
What we find especially appealing about Stockyphi is not just its ability to effectively manage stock levels across multiple locations, but that it's so customizable. You can hide products that are out of stock in specific locations while still keeping them visible in other locations where they're available. This can significantly reduce customer frustration and improve your store's overall sales performance.
Pros
- Real-time inventory management
- Automatically hides out-of-stock products
- Supports multiple locations
- Allows users to perform bulk actions
Cons
- A little complex to set up and configure
- Occasional technical issues and glitches
7. Ouiteo - Best App for Customization
KeepShoppers Score: 9.6
Key Features
- Automatically hides sold-out products
- Customization in display
- Multiple location support
- Detailed analytics
Ouiteo: Sort and Hide Sold Out is an inventory management application for sorting and hiding your sold-out products with a range of customization options. These include custom messaging, button and label customization, and customized display settings for sold-out products.
Why We Liked It
Offering an impressive range of over 50 sorting options, it's no wonder Ouiteo: Sort and Hide Sold Out is among the best apps in the customization category. This means you get a great deal of flexibility in creating custom rules for hiding sold-out products based on their inventory needs. The app's sorting options include everything from price and product type to tags and vendors, making it a highly versatile solution for hiding sold-out inventory.
Pros
- Customizable rules for hiding products
- Excellent customer support
- Affordable pricing
- Detailed analytics
Cons
- Limited to Shopify stores
- Occasional glitches and bugs
8. Nada - Best App for Shopify Plus
KeepShoppers Score: 9.4
Key Features
- Advanced sorting options
- Real-time updates
- Automated hiding
- Shopify Plus integration
If you work within Shopify Plus, Nada | Sort & Hide Sold Out is an inventory management app specially designed to help you streamline your inventory management processes, including automatically moving out-of-stock products to the end of the store.
Why We Liked It
We liked Nada for its robust features specifically tailored for Shopify Advanced stores with large inventories. This app offers advanced filtering options, including the ability to sort products by stock status and custom tags. It also offers a fast and reliable support system, which is crucial for large stores that have less time to deal with significant technical issues.
Pros
- Supports large inventories
- Advanced filtering and sorting options
- Flexible product hiding based on custom rules
- Free trial
Cons
- Limited to Shopify Plus
- Requires technical knowledge for customization
Customer-Focused E-Commerce: Hide Sold-Out Items With These Top Apps
Hiding sold-out items is an effective way to manage out-of-stock products on your e-commerce store and subsequently decrease the losses from out-of-stock products on Shopify. Using these apps to automate the process can save you time, improve your store's customer experience, and increase sales.
However, it's important to consider the specific needs and goals of your store to select the best app for hiding sold-out items. With a range of features such as customization, page redirects, and notifications, each app has its unique advantages, and it's up to you to choose the one that best fits your store's requirements.
» Discover the best apps for managing out-of-stock inventory
KeepShoppers Methodology
Below are the parameters we considered while evaluating the Shopify apps for this list:
- Ease of Use: We've scored each app based on how easy it is to install and navigate.
- Features: We considered the range of features each app offers and their usefulness.
- Customer Support: We've taken into account the helpfulness and timeliness of each app's user support in cases of technical issues.
- Pricing: We've looked into the cost of using each app, including any free plans, features, and add-ons that may be available.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I really need an app to hide out-of-stock products?
While it's possible to manually hide out-of-stock products in your store, it can be a time-consuming and tedious process, especially if you have a large inventory. Using an app can automate and streamline this process, freeing up your time and ensuring a better shopping experience for your customers through additional features like customizable messaging, real-time inventory updates, and more.
When is it better to hide sold-out items than move them to the end of the collection?
It's better to hide sold-out items when there are too many out-of-stock products or when they're causing clutter and confusion for your customers. Hiding them helps maintain a clean and organized storefront, while moving them to the end of the collection can still be confusing for customers who may not realize that those items are sold out.
What's the difference between hiding and deleting a sold-out item?
Hiding a sold-out item removes it from the storefront but retains its data, while deleting a sold-out item permanently removes it from the store. While hiding out of-stock items allows you to easily reinstate them when they become available again, deleting removes all information and requires you to create the item from scratch.
What do you tell a customer when a product is out of stock?
When a product is out of stock, it's important to be transparent with the customer and let them know when you expect the item to be back in stock. A good example of a response could be: "I'm sorry, but the item you're interested in is currently out of stock. However, we are expecting to receive a new shipment in about two weeks. Would you like me to notify you when the item is back in stock?" This approach acknowledges the customer's interest in the product, provides them with a timeline for when it will be available, and offers a solution to ensure they don't miss out on the product.