Why Your Shopify Product Says “Sold Out” and How to Fix It

One of the most confusing moments for Shopify beginners is when a product shows as Sold Out on the storefront, even though you believe it should be available. You might also see an unclickable Add to Cart button, or checkout completely disabled. In this guide, we’ll walk through every reason this happens and exactly how to fix it.

Inventory and product availability settings inside Shopify can feel overwhelming when you’re brand new. Several independent settings all work together to determine whether a product appears available, purchasable, or out of stock. The good news is that once you understand how Shopify looks at publishing, tracking, and location quantities, you’ll be able to diagnose these issues instantly.

As you read through this guide, you can also explore more beginner-friendly help on ProfessorCommerce.com, where we break down the Shopify admin step-by-step.

1. Check Whether the Product Is Active and Published

The very first place to check is your product status. Inside the Shopify admin, open Products → Your Product and look near the top right. The product must be set to Active and must be published to your Online Store sales channel.

If your product is not published to the Online Store, it will appear in your admin but your storefront will treat it as unavailable. This leads many beginners to think their product is broken when in reality it is simply unpublished.

To fix this, make sure:

• The product status is Active
• The Online Store sales channel is checked
• You save the product after updating these settings

This simple oversight accounts for a huge number of “Why is my product not showing?” issues for new Shopify users.

2. Check Inventory Levels at Each Location

Once your product is active and published, the next thing Shopify looks at is inventory. This is where it can get confusing. Shopify doesn’t look at just one number – it looks at your inventory per location.

To check this, go to Products → Your product → Inventory. If inventory is zero at your active location, Shopify will treat the item as out of stock and will automatically show the Sold Out label.

For example, if your product shows:

• On hand: 0
• Committed: 0
• Available: 0

You’ll see Sold Out on the storefront and your Add to Cart button will become unclickable.

The fix is simple: update your quantity. If you genuinely have stock available, type a number (such as 5 or 10) into the quantity field and click Save. After refreshing your storefront, the Sold Out label will disappear and your purchase buttons will return.

3. Using “Continue Selling When Out of Stock”

Many Shopify stores—especially dropshipping stores and print-on-demand shops—never want their products to show as sold out. Instead, they rely on a supplier who fulfills each order regardless of inventory inside Shopify.

If this sounds like you, then Shopify has a built-in fix:

Enable Continue selling when out of stock.

This option tells Shopify to ignore inventory quantities entirely. Even if your product shows zero quantity on every location, customers will still be able to purchase without seeing a Sold Out badge.

This setting is found under Products → Your product → Inventory. Toggle on the option labeled Continue selling when out of stock and click Save. Refresh your storefront and you’ll see that the product becomes purchasable again even with zero inventory.

This is especially useful for stores that rely on suppliers who do not frequently run out of items. However, Shopify warns that enabling this may result in overselling—so use it only if you are confident in your supply chain.

4. Disable “Track Quantity” Entirely

If you don’t need Shopify to track inventory at all, you can simply disable the entire inventory tracking system. This is common for digital products, services, made-to-order products, or stores that rely completely on suppliers.

To disable tracking, uncheck the setting labeled Track quantity.

Once tracking is turned off, Shopify no longer shows inventory numbers or Sold Out labels. On the storefront, the Add to Cart button will always be available.

When this option is disabled:

• No inventory numbers will appear in your product admin
• Continue selling when out of stock becomes irrelevant
• Your store cannot run out of this item

For many online-only stores, this is the simplest and cleanest way to avoid inventory-related issues entirely.

5. Bulk Edit Inventory Settings for Multiple Products

If you have multiple products that all need their inventory, tracking, or continue-selling settings updated, Shopify’s Bulk Editor makes this process fast.

To do this:

1. Go to Products
2. Select the products you want to edit
3. Click Edit to open the Bulk Editor
4. Add the inventory columns using the Columns button

You can enable or disable tracking and continue-selling for all selected products by scrolling down the column and applying changes row-by-row. Once done, click Save to apply the updates to every product on the list.

This tool is extremely valuable for stores with many SKUs or stores that imported products without consistent settings.

6. Why Products Sometimes Show Different Availability

It’s common to see some items marked as Sold Out and others marked as available, even though you believe they should be the same. This happens because Shopify evaluates inventory, tracking, and publishing per product. Even one forgotten toggle or leftover setting from a previous import can cause inconsistent results.

When in doubt, check:

• Publishing status to the Online Store
• Inventory quantity per location
• Track quantity toggle
• Continue selling when out of stock

Between these four areas, you can diagnose 99% of storefront Sold Out errors.

If you're still learning how the Shopify admin works and want a guided step-by-step path, the 30-Day Beginner’s Shopify Program is a great starting point. You can explore it at this link for a deeper walkthrough of every setting mentioned here.

7. Putting It All Together

Shopify gives you complete control over inventory, but that also means beginners can easily misconfigure these settings without realizing it. The key is understanding what Shopify checks—and in what order:

1. Is the product Active?
2. Is it published to the Online Store?
3. Is quantity greater than zero if tracking is enabled?
4. Is “Continue selling when out of stock” turned on?
5. Is inventory tracking disabled entirely?

Each of these plays a role in whether your Add to Cart button appears, whether checkout is available, and whether your product displays Sold Out or not.

For more Shopify education, tutorials, and coverage of platform updates, check out our Youtube Channel and ProfessorCommerce.com. And if you’d like your Shopify brand featured in our videos for additional SEO visibility, you can explore our Patreon at this link.

Understanding how these systems work together will save you hours of frustration and ensure your store always displays your products correctly. Once you master inventory settings, your Shopify storefront becomes far more predictable—and much easier to manage as your business grows.