Click on Online Store->Themes->Edit default theme content. I’m using the Simple Theme.
Then click the ‘Products’ tab and in the ‘Product’ section, there are 2 fields, one is “Sold out” and one is “Unavailable”. If I am tracking quantity of an active item and the number available is 0, then the product will show the text shown in the ‘Sold out’ field. However, what event or action invokes the ‘Unavailable’ status? What is the difference between these two fields?
I have some item variants that are just never going to be available, so I want those to show as ‘Unavailable’. However, I have some local pickup items that I want to show as ‘Contact Us’. It seems I can use the two aforementioned fields to accomplish this, but I can’t figure out what gets a product into the ‘Unavailable’ status vs the ‘Sold out’ status. If I can figure that out, I can choose whatever verbiage I want.
Thanks
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Hi @ArcAccess ,
“Sold out” appears when your inventory reach to zero and that makes the product/variant unavailable. However, in your Shopify admin, you can set the product to “Continue selling when out of stock”, which makes a product/variant still available even if the inventory reaches to zero.
Note: When you use this “Continue selling when out of stock” option, if someone buys your product even it is zero, your inventory number goes to negative.
I hope that answers your question
Hello @ArcAccess ,
In Shopify, the “Sold Out” and “Unavailable” fields in the Product section have slightly different meanings.
The “Sold Out” field is used to indicate that a product has sold out, meaning that all available inventory has been purchased. When the quantity of a product reaches 0, Shopify automatically updates the product status to “Sold Out” and displays the associated text in your store.
On the other hand, the “Unavailable” field is used to indicate that a product is not available for purchase, even if there is inventory remaining. The “Unavailable” status is not automatically triggered by inventory levels, but must be set manually in the product settings.
To set a product as “Unavailable” in Shopify, follow these steps:
- Go to Shopify admin panel → Products
- Click on the product that you want to set as unavailable
- Go to Availability → select unavailable
- Save your changes
Hope this can help.
Let us know if you need any further support
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Thank you for the good explanation OneCommerce. This is how I suspected it worked, but the last part is my hangup. I can’t find where to set a product as ‘Unavailable’, even with your instructions. When I’m within a particular product, I can’t find “Availability”. There is “Status”, which only has options of “Active” and “Draft”. I can’t find where to set as “Unavailable”. Could you provide more detail with a screenshot of where this option is?
Hello @ArcAccess ,
In this case, you can use the “Manage” option to temporarily remove a product from your online store. Here’s how:
- Go to Shopify admin panel → Products
- Click on the product that you want to set as unavailable
- In the top right corner, click the “More actions” button (represented by three dots).
- From the drop-down menu, select “Manage”
- In the “Sales channels” section, uncheck the box next to “Online Store”. This will remove the product from your online store.
- Click “Done”.
Hope this can work.
OneCommerce team.
Unfortunately, I don’t want the product completely removed from the Store. Some of the products that I want to be listed as “Unavailable” are variants, so I don’t think I can remove them individually anyway. I’m still after the way to invoke the usage of the text in the “Unavailable” field.
–Mark
Didn’t answer the question
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HI Mark! Did you ever figure out the answer to this issue? I’m looking to do something similar.
Thankyou! 
Sarah
I did not resolve this. Sorry.
If you are tracking inventory for the item you want to make unavailable, on the product page, in the inventory panel, perhaps you can assign a quantity to “Available” and assign the same quantity to “Unavailable” to invoke the desired result? I haven’t tested this, but hope it might help.
