We’ve previously covered temporarily out-of-stock products, so now I want to discuss how we should handle products that will not be coming back in stock. 

When this happens, we need to consider guiding both users and search engines toward relevant alternatives.

What to do with Out-of-Stock Products

The typical way to handle products that will not be coming back in stock is to use 301 redirects, but that is not always the right approach.

Let’s look at when to redirect and when leaving the URL as a 404 might make the most sense. 

Product Unavailability

When a product is permanently out of stock, it means that the item will not be restocked or made available once again in the future. When this happens, we need an effective strategy to guide users toward similar and currently available products.

Rather than leaving customers with a dead-end or a generic “out of stock” message, using a 301 to redirect them to an alternative product ensures a positive user experience.

Before implementing a 301 redirect, find a closely related product that is in stock and can serve as an alternative. This ensures that users are redirected to a relevant option.

Redirect is Not Always Needed

If a closely related product is not available, the best approach is often to leave the product as a 404.

If you were to use a 301 to an irrelevant product, this could negatively affect the user experience and, therefore, your conversions. Leaving the product as a 404 is a perfectly acceptable approach.

You can also consider using a 410 to indicate that the page is Gone and is not due to return.

Remembering this and knowing how to handle product unavailability appropriately will help ensure the correct setup of your store and should help set you up for success as it grows. 

If you’re looking for help growing your eCommerce store, I can help. Whether it’s a technical website audit or monthly SEO consultancy, I’d love to chat with you in more detail. 

When you have an eCommerce store, it can be common for products to go out of stock, which isn’t always bad. 

Products may become temporarily out of stock, and as store owners, we need to know how to handle this. 

By adopting some of the practices we will discuss today, we can maintain customer satisfaction and contribute to long-term loyalty.

Strategies for Temporarily Out of Stock Products

Products may be out of stock for a while for a variety of reasons. This can be due to stock shortages, high demand or a number of other situations.

Consider the following approaches to navigate the challenges of temporary product unavailability:

Enabling Backorders and Subscriptions

BACKORDERS:

We can offer back orders to allow customers to place orders for products that are currently out of stock.

This pre-order feature informs customers that the product will be shipped once it’s back in stock. It is key to customer retention as it allows customers to express interest in a product even when it’s not immediately available.

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

Another option is to offer back-in-stock subscriptions, allowing customers to receive notifications when the desired product is available again.

This approach keeps customers informed and engaged, creating a sense of anticipation and excitement, especially when customers are notified that the product they were waiting for is back in stock.

This positive experience can lead to repeat business.

Alternative Product Suggestions

It works well if we can provide alternative product suggestions when a particular item is out of stock.

These alternatives should ideally be similar or complementary options so that we can ensure customers find suitable choices to meet their needs.

Enhancing the shopping experience by offering close alternatives shows that we understand our audience and are committed to customer satisfaction, even if the initial product is temporarily unavailable.

Strategies for Product SEO and Visibility

OPTIMISED PRODUCT PAGES:

It is important to ensure we have optimised product pages even when items are out of stock.

This ensures that the pages continue to contribute to rank and bring in website traffic so that customers can easily find them when the product becomes available once more.

STRUCTURED DATA:

As well as using good structured data on our products, we can update them to mark products as out of stock.

Doing so helps search engines understand the status and can potentially be displayed in search results, indicating transparency to potential customers.

ANALYSIS PERFORMANCE:

If we implement all of the above, we can regularly monitor the performance of backorders and subscriptions and how this contributes to sales and revenue.

These strategies can help store owners to have better management and control over our products if they should go temporarily out of stock.