Out of stock products?

[YNWA]

Hi.

A client runs Woocommerce platform selling clothing. This clothing is seasonal and 95% of the stock, once it sells out is never restocked with the exception of a few core items that cross over season to season.

What I want to know is, whats the best way to handle items that are out of stock and never coming back?

I see a few options:

1. delete it. Losing its rank and indexed link.
2. 301 it back to the "brands" page or the "category" page. Eg. a Armani T-Shirt can go to either Armani page or T-Shirts page keeping it relevant.
3. Just leave the old products there saying out of stock.

All have benefits to the business.

1. Delete it. Its gone. No more trouble, extra work involved, keeps out CMS clean.

2. Obviously good for SEO? Also good for customer to go to a relevant page. But do we end up with loads of links to manage increasing costs if a developer needs to do the work?

3. Easiest but defo not the right option.

So what is it? Is 301'ing really worth the hassle? Is it possible bearing in mind we have 500 items every 6 months going out of stock?

Who 301's it? Is it possible for staff to do it in Woocommerce or does a developer have to do them everytime you need to 301 a product?

What is your advise on what to do and how to do it?

Thanks

[MonicaOConnor]

In my experience, leaving the products up with links to the category page or a similar item has worked the best for me. A lot of people still search for items that were discontinued 2-4 years ago, so removing the pages didn't work well for us.  There is a meta tag you can use to tell Google the product is discontinued, but most of my customers really like being able to go to the old products and find similar models. I am in the generator industry, so years down the road someone could be searching for their model looking for a manual or something which is another big reason we keep the old products up.

We also carry small parts, When those items are discontinued we redirect to category page with a message that says the product you are looking for is no longer available, please see these other suggestions or call us.

If something is just out of stock, we leave the product alone and update the availability.

[taryn_s]

I think that would be a great solution with a really clear incentive for the shopper to convert. On the Moz post I linked to, Stephanie wrote about using cookies to implement a message after a redirect under the 'Dynamically-Generated Messages' sub header. Unfortunately it's well beyond my coding skills but I'm sure a developer could help you out.

[YNWA]

Thanks.

Some great points. The whole SEO/Usability issue has no way around it as ultimately the item they want is not available so they will be disappointed finding a lovely message saying out of stock or if they are sent to an alternatives page.

What advise would you give?

I am thinking, if possible, 301 to a category page but somehow put a message on screen saying what is happening.

Maybe "Very sorry but the item you are looking for is out of stock. We have redirected you to our t-shirts category so you can browse for an alternative. Please use discount code FREESHIP and enjoy some free shipping on us"

Then at least you tell them whats happened and a little "sorry" incentive with the free shipping.

[taryn_s]

Howdy,

As you suggested, there are a few approaches you can take here. There's a really thorough article/discussion on Econsultancy on exactly this topic as well as a Moz blog on the same topic. I'd have a read of those and decide which approach is really best for you.

If you decide to go down the redirect route, there's no need for a developer to be involved. There are loads of plugins for WordPress you can use to create your own redirects but this one would probably suit your needs.