SektorCepte · 2026-10-26
Hide a Product When It Is Out of Stock
Goods that have left the shelf should not stay visible on the site or in the catalogue. Hide the line. Do not delete it. Put it back the day the carton arrives.
A customer asks for the goods they see on the screen. You say they are not on the shelf. The chat opens with an apology, and the second sentence carries little trust. When the stock is gone, the line should not stay visible. A visible line is a promise to sell. If you cannot keep the promise, hide the line that day. Deleting is a different job. A deleted page takes its address and the trust it gathered with it. Hiding is like taking the goods out of the window for a while. When the box arrives, you put them back in the same place.
1. Close the visibility and keep the record
Take the product off the published site, or use the hide choice. Do not throw the page away. Let the name, the price, the size, and the photo stay where they are. Hide the same goods in the catalogue. If you close only the site and leave the catalogue open, people write from there. Both places change on the same morning. Writing "finished" over goods that are gone is also incomplete. The person still asks, and you still say no. Cutting the question at the start tires you less than explaining. If a similar item is truly there, show it on its own. If it is not, do not dress something up as similar. A dressed-up item becomes the wrong order.
2. Separate goods that come in on order
Some lines never sit on the shelf. They come in on order. Do not hide those the way you hide finished stock. Write it plainly on the line: not on the shelf, comes in on order, the time is this long. The time should be the real range the supplier gave, not a hope. If you do not know the range, do not write a day. Say you will send word, and write on the day you do. If ordered goods and finished goods look the same, a person expects both tomorrow. Open a separate heading. The heading shows the place where waiting is ordinary. Where waiting is not ordinary, the line is not visible.
3. Open it again the day it arrives
When the carton is on the shelf, open the line the same day. Do not say you will look tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes a week, and in that week people go to another shop while you hold the goods. When you open it, read the price and the photo once more. If the wholesaler changed the price, do not open it on the old figure. If the photo belongs to the old pack, take a new one. A line opened again carries the promise it had before it was hidden. If the promise changed, change the sentence too. When you hide it, put a note aside: why it was hidden, and when to look. Without a note you scan the whole list on the way back.
4. The basket and the message should give the same news
If goods hidden on the site still open on an old link, that link should close or land on the hidden page. If a price was already agreed in an old chat, that word stands. A new person does not see the hidden line. Do not mix the two. If the form can still select these goods, remove the choice. If the choice remains, the form orders goods you do not have. Hiding in the WhatsApp catalogue does not stand in for hiding on the site. They are two drawers. On the evening round, look at both. If one stays open, the first message in the morning comes from that drawer.
5. On the weekly round, look for what has finished
On Friday or Monday, search the list for what is not on the shelf. Goods that sell quickly can be checked every day. Slow goods can be checked once a week. An unchecked list keeps selling a finished screw for another month. If an apprentice sees the sale, they tell you, and you hide it that day. If telling and hiding stay with different people, a day escapes between them. The question that arrives that day receives a no. Keep a short list of what is hidden. If the list grows, either place an order or close the line for good. Goods hidden for months are an archive, not a catalogue.
This evening, pick one item that is not on the shelf. See whether it is visible on the site and in the catalogue. If it is, hide it, and write aside the day the carton is due. Opening the line that day should be your first job.