Setup for a Recently Sold Unique Products Collection

Shopify Discussion
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Topic summary

A merchant wants to display recently sold unique items (that won’t be restocked) in a dedicated section while keeping them hidden from navigation and search elsewhere on the site.

Proposed Solution:

  • Create a “recently sold” collection with inventory = 0 condition
  • Set other collections to show only items with inventory > 0
  • Avoid linking the sold collection in navigation menus
  • Create custom product templates removing “add to cart” buttons for sold items

Challenges Identified:

  • Products may still appear in site search (requires custom theme coding to exclude)
  • Manual collection management needed if not using automated inventory-based rules

Related Issues Raised:

  • One user reports scammers placing orders for zero-price, zero-inventory gallery items despite proper template setup
  • Another merchant asks how to completely remove unique products from the website after sale rather than just marking them sold
Summarized with AI on October 31. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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Hello Shopify Community,

I am seeking assistance with setting up a specific section on my Shopify store to display recently sold products. My products are unique and not restocked once sold, so I aim to keep the out-of-stock products collection hidden throughout the store except for this dedicated section showcasing these unique sold items.

Here are my specific requirements:

  1. I need the out-of-stock products collection to be invisible and inaccessible through both site navigation and search.
  2. I want to include a specific section on my homepage (or another relevant page) to show unique products that have been recently sold, even if they are out of stock.
  3. This recently sold products section should not be accessible or visible anywhere else on the website.

Could someone guide me on how to set this up within my Shopify theme, or recommend any apps that might facilitate this? Tips on the best practices for managing and displaying these unique products to avoid customer confusion would also be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your support and suggestions.

Best regards

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This is easily achievable by simply creating a collection with the products you’ve sold in it.

You can either handle the collection manually, moving products into it each time something is sold (and removing the products from any other collection) … or else you can setup all of your collections to be based on product tags with the condition that ‘inventory is greater than 0’ … but then have the ‘recently sold’ collection have the condition ‘inventory is equal to 0’.

The only issue with this setup is that the sold out products would still show in the search. It might be possible to edit your theme’s coding for the search functionality to exclude products based on inventory quantity or product tags, but I’m not sure what the coding would be for that. Perhaps someone else can chime in, if you confirm that this is in fact how you would like to handle things.

As far as excluding the products from your navigation menu goes – that’s as simple as not linking to the new collection … and then if you have an ‘all products’ page/collection, you could create a new collection called “All Products” with the handle “all” to replace that, and just set the condition for the collection to be ‘inventory is greater than 0’ (just like the rest of your collections).

If you wanted to go the extra mile on this one, you could create a custom product page template, where the ‘add to cart’ / ‘sold out’ options are removed, and then include a custom message about how the product has already been sold, but they can contact you if they’d like recommendations on similar products, etc. If you do a custom product page template though, you’d have to manually assign the template to the product each time you make a sale.

1 Like
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I have used your last suggestions and made a different template for “gallery” items. This has worked for about 2 years until this week. I’ve had multiple orders for several of these items. Price is zero, inventory is zero, but somehow these scammers are placing orders for these items. I responded to the first couple explaining the reason I can’t fulfill their orders. Yet the same couple of “customers” are doing it again for the same items. When I view the website from any device, the theme works. If I select “track inventory” then it shows “sold out”. Setting up rules for my gallery page allowed me to remove add to cart options, but how are these people doing this? Shopify won’t allow me to block them for fraudulent activity because they don’t put in payment information, because the item should not be available to order.

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Along with this question, if I have a unique product that I want to be removed once sold, how would i achieve that? I will never carry that exact item again, so I do not want it to show up on the website after a purchase of the unique item. Thank you.