Sold-out products often sit at the top of a Shopify collection, above products a shopper can still buy. This post explains why the built-in sort options leave them there.
Does Shopify move sold-out products to the bottom automatically?
No. Shopify’s built-in collection sort options do not move sold-out products to the bottom. A collection can be sorted by relevance, best selling, product title, product price, product created date, or manually. None of those options is described as reading whether a product is available.
When a product sells out, it keeps the position it already had. It stays there until someone moves it. Manual sorting is the one order you can change yourself, so you can drag a sold-out product down by hand. Shopify does not move it for you.
What Shopify’s collection sort options rank on
You pick the order in the Shopify admin, under Collection items > Default sort.
| Option | Shopify’s description | Reads stock? |
|---|---|---|
| Most relevant | ”Sort by your most relevant products based on sales performance.” | No |
| Best selling | ”Sort by your best selling products based on the all-time number of orders that include the product.” | No |
| Product title | ”Sort by product title in alphabetical order or reverse alphabetical order.” | No |
| Product price | ”Sort by the highest or lowest product price.” | No |
| Product created date | ”Sort by oldest or newest products based on the date that products were created.” | No |
| Manually | ”Sort manually based on your own preferences.” | No |
None of these options ranks on stock, because a product’s title, price, created date and sales record do not change when the last unit sells.
Why Best selling and newest first keep sold-out products on top
Best selling ranks on the all-time number of orders that include the product. Selling out does not change that number. A product that sold well last year and is now at zero still ranks near the top.
Newest first ranks on the date a product was created. A product you added on Monday and sold out on Tuesday holds the top of the collection until you add something newer.
What sorting a collection manually costs
Manual sorting works, but you repeat these steps every time stock changes:
- Open the collection.
- Find what sold out since you last looked.
- Drag it to the bottom.
- Move it back up when it restocks.
- Repeat for every collection that product belongs to.
A product that belongs to six collections has to be moved in each of them.
Why Shopify search results push sold-out products down
Shopify’s online store search does read availability. By default, “unavailable products are displayed after all other matching results”. The Search & Discovery app is where a merchant chooses whether unavailable products appear at all or are placed last.
This applies to search results and predictive search only.
The same app adds filters to collection pages. Availability is one of them. A filter changes what is listed after a shopper applies it. It does not change the order the page opens in.
How to move sold-out products to the bottom automatically
With Siftori, a product that sells out drops to the bottom of the collection within minutes. It climbs back up when it restocks. The order you arranged for everything else stays as it was. Its Sold-out handling page is where you choose which collections it covers.
Common questions
Will changing my collection’s sort order fix this? No. Every built-in option ranks on relevance, sales, title, price or date. None of them is described as reading stock.
Does the Search & Discovery app push sold-out products down? Not on collection pages. Shopify’s online store search places unavailable products after the other matches by default. On collection pages the app offers only filters, which a shopper has to apply.
What happens when a sold-out product comes back in stock? With a manual order, it stays at the bottom until you move it back yourself. With an app that handles sold-out products, it returns up the collection on its own once Shopify reports stock again.