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> I think the fact that out of stock items aren't shown isn't a UX improvement. I see your point but I'd say it can be for certain items. A stupid example: if

> I think the fact that out of stock items aren't shown isn't a UX improvement. I see your point but I'd say it can be for certain items. A stupid example: if I was shopping for air fresheners (I'm not;-) I'd rather not see my search results in the webshop polluted by every discontinued version of Wunderbaum they ever had in stock.

barbegal 6y ago
Yes it is still advantageous to demote out of stock items in the search results. But if the store knows a certain Wunderbaum flavor is really popular but not in stock right now it should probably show up fairly highly in the search results. And there is a difference between being temporarily out of stock and discontinued.
eps 6y ago
Just order them by availability. In stock first, out of stock second.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  and if you don't make that clear, I scroll through a bunch of useless results. I can't remember a single time when I wanted out of stock items shown by default.
- pure-awesome 6y ago
  In addition to this, mark them clearly as out-of-stock - fade out the preview image and prepend [out of stock] to the item description.
- OJFord 6y ago
  Ideally make it a choice - I don't like it when I order by price and it's overriden to (availability, price) - maybe it's out of stock because the price is that good, and I'm willing to wait.
polytely 6y ago
Some shops also have an expected delivery delay indicator in addition of their out-of-stock indicator, so if I want to buy a Moog Subharmonicon it will say _out of stock: order now and receive it in about 5 weeks._ Which is a really nice piece of UX in my opinion. [0]: https://www.bax-shop.nl/synthesizer?o=product_cdate https://www.bax-shop.nl/synthesizer?o=product_cdate
lucideer 6y ago
> I see your point but [...] I'd rather not see my search results in the webshop polluted There's three issues with this: 1. In UX, hiding things is a lazy solution to not being able to effectively differentiate items by relevance. There isn't an easy one-size-fits-all answer to doing the latter, which is why you need good, experienced UX people. Hiding things is what the inexperienced/lazy/bad ones do instead. 2. "Polluted" is also a codeword for "not of the clean, white, zero-inbox aesthetic I desire", and in certain situations this excuse is overused to enormously degrade UX in favour of a contrived sense of visual "cleanliness". A functional UI shouldn't be "clean", it should contain all the information you need to see (in a clear, differentiable, non-confusing way). 3. This is a stretch, but I think ideal system would differentiate between "currently out of stock" and "discontinued", and filtering out the latter is slightly less of a glaring issue.
zaarn 6y ago
There is still a difference between "out of stock" and "discontinued", one is a superset of the other and one implies it will never go out of the state "out of stock" again.
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  Discontinued products should be delisted.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  If the shop in the original story only hid "discontinued" parts, the author could have still run into this problem if the correct parts were no longer made.
AdrianB1 6y ago
I would use the checkbox on the left side (that many stores have) for in stock products.

barbegal 6y ago

Yes it is still advantageous to demote out of stock items in the search results. But if the store knows a certain Wunderbaum flavor is really popular but not in stock right now it should probably show up fairly highly in the search results. And there is a difference between being temporarily out of stock and discontinued.

eps 6y ago

Just order them by availability. In stock first, out of stock second.

Semaphor 6y ago
and if you don't make that clear, I scroll through a bunch of useless results. I can't remember a single time when I wanted out of stock items shown by default.
pure-awesome 6y ago
In addition to this, mark them clearly as out-of-stock - fade out the preview image and prepend [out of stock] to the item description.
OJFord 6y ago
Ideally make it a choice - I don't like it when I order by price and it's overriden to (availability, price) - maybe it's out of stock because the price is that good, and I'm willing to wait.

polytely 6y ago

Some shops also have an expected delivery delay indicator in addition of their out-of-stock indicator, so if I want to buy a Moog Subharmonicon it will say _out of stock: order now and receive it in about 5 weeks._ Which is a really nice piece of UX in my opinion. [0]: https://www.bax-shop.nl/synthesizer?o=product_cdate https://www.bax-shop.nl/synthesizer?o=product_cdate

lucideer 6y ago

> I see your point but [...] I'd rather not see my search results in the webshop polluted There's three issues with this: 1. In UX, hiding things is a lazy solution to not being able to effectively differentiate items by relevance. There isn't an easy one-size-fits-all answer to doing the latter, which is why you need good, experienced UX people. Hiding things is what the inexperienced/lazy/bad ones do instead. 2. "Polluted" is also a codeword for "not of the clean, white, zero-inbox aesthetic I desire", and in certain situations this excuse is overused to enormously degrade UX in favour of a contrived sense of visual "cleanliness". A functional UI shouldn't be "clean", it should contain all the information you need to see (in a clear, differentiable, non-confusing way). 3. This is a stretch, but I think ideal system would differentiate between "currently out of stock" and "discontinued", and filtering out the latter is slightly less of a glaring issue.

zaarn 6y ago

There is still a difference between "out of stock" and "discontinued", one is a superset of the other and one implies it will never go out of the state "out of stock" again.

AdrianB1 6y ago
Discontinued products should be delisted.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
If the shop in the original story only hid "discontinued" parts, the author could have still run into this problem if the correct parts were no longer made.

AdrianB1 6y ago

I would use the checkbox on the left side (that many stores have) for in stock products.