What happens when some product variants go out of stock?
Occasionally, some product variants may temporarily go out of stock (OOS). When this happens, you’ll see an “out of stock” notification in My products in your Printful account. If a variant goes out of stock, you can manually edit the order to select a different available variant.
Variant visibility settings for Etsy and Shopify
Before publishing or republishing a product, you can choose how out-of-stock variants are displayed in your store.
To update variant visibility:
Go to My products and open the product by clicking its product card.
In Publishing settings, find Variant visibility.
Select your preferred option and republish the product.
Available options by platform
Etsy
Etsy offers three variant visibility options:
Show all variants as available for purchase
- Customers can order any variant, regardless of stock status.
- You’ll need to manually handle orders for unavailable variants.
Show in-stock variants as available and out-of-stock variants as “sold out”
- All variants remain visible.
- Out-of-stock variants appear as sold out.
- This option is often preferred for SEO, as all variants stay indexed.
Only show in-stock variants and hide any out-of-stock variants
- Out-of-stock variants are hidden when you republish.
- Customers can only purchase variants that are currently in stock.
Shopify
Shopify offers two variant visibility options:
Show all variants as available for purchase
- All variants remain purchasable, regardless of stock status.
- You’ll need to manually resolve orders for unavailable variants.
Only show in-stock variants and hide any out-of-stock variants
- Only in-stock variants appear in your store.
- Out-of-stock variants are hidden after republishing.
After choosing a variant visibility option, review colors, sizes, prices, and SKUs, then click Publish to update the product in your store.