Inventory quantity display help requited, again.

Store Design

Topic summary

A merchant struggled with displaying accurate inventory status for products that aren’t physically in stock but can still be ordered. When enabling “continue selling when out of stock,” the store incorrectly showed items as “In Stock,” creating false customer expectations about immediate shipping.

The Problem:

  • Products with zero or negative inventory showed “In Stock” when “continue selling” was enabled
  • Customers expected immediate shipment for items that actually required special ordering
  • Existing inventory messaging only worked for items with “continue selling” disabled

The Solution:
A user provided step-by-step instructions to customize the default inventory text:

  1. Navigate to Sales Channel → Online Store → Themes
  2. Click the 3-dot menu beside “Customize” and select “Edit Default Theme Content”
  3. Under the “Products” heading, locate “Inventory Out Of Stock Continue Selling”
  4. Change the default “In Stock” text to a custom message (e.g., “Available to Backorder”)

This allows merchants to set accurate expectations by displaying custom text for out-of-stock items while still accepting orders. The original poster confirmed this solution resolved their issue. Screenshots were provided showing the navigation steps and configuration screens.

Summarized with AI on October 31. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

I’ve asked this before, and the solution I am using isn’t working.

Here’s the problem.

We often sell items which we don’t have physically available, we don’t stock our whole catalogue, some times we have to order these items in specifically when someone makes that order on our shop.

The inventory can be at 0 or below, and we have ‘continue selling when out of stock’ ticked. If we use this method it still shows ‘in stock’ for the product on the page, so customers expect it to be sent out right away.

At the moment we have the following message, in green on our shop, this works for items with the ‘continue selling’ box unticked.

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If we set it to ‘continue selling’ and the quantity to -1 it’s not really accurate about our stock, see below. I am not sure the best way to handle this. Any tips or pointers would be great. I want to keep customer expectations where they need to be.

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2

  1. Clearly communicate availability: Make sure to clearly indicate on your product pages that the items are not currently in stock and may require ordering. This can be done by adding a message or disclaimer near the “Add to Cart” button or within the product description. You can inform customers about the estimated time it will take to fulfill the order and set their expectations accordingly.

  2. Provide estimated shipping times: When customers add items to their cart or proceed to checkout, display an estimated shipping time or delivery date based on the availability of the product. This can help manage their expectations and give them an idea of when they can expect to receive the item.

3

I know this is an older post but I had the same issue and figured it out. Hopefully this will help someone else.

  1. In your admin menu, go to Sales Channel / Online Store / Themes
  2. Under your selected theme (you’ll see a preview of your site) there is a “Customize” button and beside that, 3 dots.
  3. Click on the 3-dot menu, and select “Edit Default Theme Content”. This will open up a screen that has various headings on it (General, Newsletter, etc.)
  4. Click on the “Products” heading
  5. Scroll down until you see “Inventory Out Of Stock Continue Selling”. The text in this field is defaulted to “In Stock” which is silly. Change this to whatever you want the customer’s screen to say when the product is out of stock (and you’re still accepting orders for that product). We chose “Available to Backorder”.

That’s it! You should now see “available to backorder” for any items that have zero stock AND the “continue selling when out of stock” box is ticked. Your customer will see “available to backorder” (or whatever phrase you chose to use) and they CAN still add the item to their shopping cart.

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4

OMG! Thank you so much for this! You have solved this stupid issue! Raising a digital pint in your honor!

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