continue selling when out of stock

Shopify Discussion
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1

what does it mean by “continue selling when out of stock”? so if i close the “continue sell when out of stock” does it work as sold instead? until its on stock again?

2

Hi @shoppew ,

First off, “Continue selling when out of stock” is an option that allows you to keep selling a product on your Shopify store even when the inventory level reaches zero. This means that customers can still place orders for that product, and you can fulfill those orders once the stock is replenished.

If you disable the “Continue selling when out of stock” option, the product will be marked as sold out when the inventory level reaches zero. This means that customers will not be able to purchase the item until it is back in stock. In this case, it effectively functions as marking the product as sold out, preventing any orders from being placed until you replenish the inventory. This approach can help manage customer expectations and ensure that you only sell items that are currently available for fulfillment.

2 Likes
3

so helpful info, thank you

4

@shoppew ‘Continue selling when out of stock’ lets you sell the product even when you don’t have inventory. Instead of sales stopping at zero, your inventory will continue to go beyond zero and start counting in negative.

In Shopify context, most merchants use ‘Continue selling when out of stock’ primarily for preorders & backorders. If you turn on the option, your products will continue to get sold, and the purchases are considered pre-purchases ahead of restockings. Then, when you restock, customers who purchased the product when it was out of stock would get their units from the restocked inventory, and the remaining will be available to purchase for other customers.

You can use a preorder app like ours - STOQ - to make good use of the ‘Continue selling when out of stock’ option. You can sell preorders or backorders with partial payments and increase purchase conversion, set up fulfillment rules that best suit your business and give customers accurate shipping information too. From our experience with preorders in the last 6 months, I feel like ‘Continue selling’ is one of the most underrated settings in Shopify to scale up your sales and convert customers without inventory :slightly_smiling_face: