Archive outdated products - Feature Suggestion

[Fiona_Tarr]

Our store has a lot of gear that becomes outdated after a year or two, while I don't mind some product being left up we've now got many years worth of gear there that clogs up some collections and categories.  I've got a couple of workarounds for this but they're not ideal and can be quite time consuming, I think shopify really need to implement a system to deal with this.

Of course you can just delete the items from the store, but this isn't great from an SEO standpoint as it breaks the links, and I assume it also has an impact on sales history of older items too, though I haven't seen this in action on Shopify.

We need a way of retiring or archiving products that are outdated, and we need a tool that's simple and easy to use and doesn't negatively impact stores usability and SEO.  I'd propose two options that can be selected using an "Archive Product" or similar:

Archive Item - Removes the item from all collections, removes all tags from the item, but keeps the URLs active along with the product page so people with a direct link, bookmarks, search engine results etc. will arrive at the actual page and still be able to view the product.  The item won't be available for purchase anymore of course, but they can still see it.

Remove Item - Removes the item from the live store altogether, but sets up a 301 redirect automatically from the product pages original URL, and redirects users to the collection it was in, or a customisable page etc.  This way people trying to visit and old item end up being able to browse the new ones, and your site isn't penalised because of it.

In both cases the items should be removed from your storefront, but remain in the backend and marked to show they're no longer live.  This way sales history etc. is still preserved, you can look up old items if you need but they're no longer clogging up your store front.

Thoughts?  

[Kevin_Liddell]

I'm gonne revive this thread.

I want and need this feature.

Yes, please add this.

[SR-KensCustomIr]

YES! Our store really needs this feature as well. It is cumbersome to dig through outdated products while trying to find current products. 

[Georgia_Ashby]

Yes, also need this feature.  We are a fashion store, so receive around 1000 new products annually.  Old products that are now out of stock currently have to be deleted to make our back office product searches manageable, and when organising collections, etc, but this breaks any Pinterest links, blog links etc. that direct people to our website as the address doesn't exist anymore, which in turn affects our SEO.

So we need a way to remove the product from back office and website visibility whilst providing a redirect for the old product address for any external links that point to it.

I bet there's loads of fashion stores out there that need this feature, please Shopify sort it out!

[RichL]

The first poster nailed it:  that's exactly the feature we need, too.  We sometimes sell Clearance items that are one-off, and once they are sold we are forced to delete the product entirely (which is not optimal) when we would prefer to Archive it.

[2D_Armory]

Reviving this as well. Come on Shopify, how hard it can be? Don't make me post a new thread!

[Trevor]

Hey, everyone!

For starters, I would like to thank you all for taking the time to bring this feature to our attention, and keeping this thread alive so it stays on our radar. As you can imagine, Shopify receives hundreds of different feature requests, so sorting through which ones are possible and which ones aren't can be quite difficult. Nevertheless, once we do receive a feature request, we total the amount of interest we get from other merchants to determine whether or not this feature would be impactful to a large group of users. 

That said, once we start working on a new feature, it can take quite some time to fully launch it as this requires hours of developing, testing, and retesting to ensure it's going to work on our platform. Once we've crossed all our t's and dotted all our i's we'll typically announce the new feature on our announcement page. 

While I can't say whether or not this feature is in the works, I can say that we have an existing feature request to add the ability to archive products. For this, I've gone ahead and added your votes to this ballot to show our developers there is further interest in getting this added in the future. I can't guarantee that this is a feature we'll be able to launch, however, I do greatly appreciate you taking the time to express your feedback on what we can do to help you as a business. 

[AndyGB]

yes, please this is a must have feature that any robust inventory management system has. we have more than 1000 products and its difficult to navigate throughout all those all products we no longer stock. As someones said previously, deleting them is not a great solution as it will affect SEO. Please implement this future. Thank you!

[Trevor]

Hey, @AndyGB!

I appreciate you taking the time to express your feedback! I've gone ahead and added your vote to the existing feature request so that our developers are aware there is further interest in getting this implemented. Feel free to keep an eye on our Announcement page for updates on this, or any other feature we may add to the platform.

[judy180andup]

Hi @Trevor We sell unique products made by artists, so each product only has a few available before it runs out and is never in stock again. I would also love to be able to archive products that we no longer sell. Thanks!

[Trevor]

Hey, @judy180andup!

Thank you for providing this feedback! I'm afraid I don' t have any news to share on this, however, I have added your feedback to our existing feature request. Hopefully, we can get this feature added in the near future! In the meantime, if you have any other feedback or requests, please don't hesitate to reply below.

[cherishe]

Thank you for the update! This is a HUGE need for our store as well. I am eager to see this implemented so I can see what I need to be working on and not be bogged down by old product.

[cherishe]

Thank you for the update! This is a HUGE need for our store as well. I am eager to see this implemented so I can see what I need to be working on and not be bogged down by old product.

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@Trevor wrote:

Hey, @judy180andup!

Thank you for providing this feedback! I'm afraid I don' t have any news to share on this, however, I have added your feedback to our existing feature request. Hopefully, we can get this feature added in the near future! In the meantime, if you have any other feedback or requests, please don't hesitate to reply below.

---

[Ramona]

Please add me to the list! Our store definitely needs this archive feature for products so that we can unclog our stores products page.

[lg123]

Hi please add my vote too - this is definitely something we need. is there any other way you suggest we can take products off and in a format to re-instate if they ever come back?

[Trevor]

@Ramona 

I've added your vote!

@lg123 

Outside of backing up your products to a CSV, deleting the products you no longer need, then importing the CSV when you need the products again, there isn't an easy way to go around this. I've added your vote to the existing request. 

[Kip_Veasey]

Please add my vote to this.  This is a feature that we had on CS Cart, many years ago.  Please make this happen.  Thanks

[Ragibh]

Dear All 

Would it help we created a small Shopify App that does exactly what you guys want and if so would 5-8 $ /Mo hurt? looking for feedback .... 

thanks in advance 

Ragib

[jack1435]

What's the down side of just making it unavailable on any of the sales channels?

[Trevor]

@jack1435 

From my understanding, the downside of making it unavailable to all of your sales channels is that the items will still appear in the list of products within the admin. This can be problematic if you have a large inventory of products that you need to navigate through, throughout the seasons.  

Hope that helps!