Sold-out products and unpublished products need different settings. A product can be sold out while its page remains available, or it can be a draft with no public page to visit.
Use the instructions for Product groups when swatches link separate Shopify products. Use the variant instructions when choices belong to one Shopify product.
Choose sold-out behavior for product groups
Open Appearance > Product groups.
Find Out of stock.
Choose Out of stock behavior.
Select Save.
Setting | What happens to a sold-out swatch |
|---|---|
Show normally | It remains visible and clickable without a sold-out mark. |
Cross out | It is crossed out and remains clickable. |
Cross out and disable | It is crossed out and cannot be clicked. |
Disable | It cannot be clicked, without a cross-out mark. |
Hide | It is hidden from the swatch list. |
If shoppers should still be able to visit a sold-out product, choose Cross out or Show normally. A clickable swatch does not make the product available to buy; Shopify still controls purchase availability.
You can also enable Put out-of-stock swatches at the end to move visible sold-out choices after available ones.
Style sold-out variants on product pages
Open Appearance > Variant swatches.
Find the section for the style you use: Button swatches, Color or image swatches, or Variant image swatches.
Choose Out of stock style.
Select Save.
Buttons support Show normally, Strike through, and Cross out. Color/image and variant-image swatches support Show normally and Cross out. These styles change the appearance of unavailable choices; they do not change Shopify inventory or make a sold-out variant purchasable.
If Use same settings as color or image swatches is selected under Variant image swatches, change the color/image settings or turn off inheritance to set a separate style.
Under General, Hide out-of-stock swatches for products with one option hides sold-out choices on product pages only when the product has one option. For example, it applies to a product with Color alone, not one with both Color and Size. You can also enable Move out-of-stock swatches to the end.
Variant swatches do not have the product-group setting Cross out and disable. If a variant choice cannot be selected, send support the product URL and the option/value affected so the theme's variant behavior can be checked.
Hide links to draft or unpublished products
For product groups:
Open Settings > Product groups.
Find Rules.
Enable Hide inactive products.
Select Save.
Draft, archived, and unpublished products are hidden from the swatch list. They remain in the group. This is the setting to check when a swatch links to a product that is no longer publicly available.
If you are testing a group made from draft products, hidden swatches can be expected. Publishing the products makes their pages available. Turning off Hide inactive products can expose their swatches, but does not publish the products or make draft links work for shoppers.
Hide products unavailable in a market
On Advanced and Premium, open Settings > Product groups > Shopify Markets and enable Hide products not published in market, then select Save.
This hides product-group swatches for products unavailable in the visitor's market. It is separate from stock status and from hiding inactive products across the store.