Get started with Discontinued Products

Discontinued Products adds a Discontinued stock status to WooCommerce for products you’ve stopped selling for good. A discontinued product can’t be bought and shows "Discontinued" where the stock message usually goes. By default it’s also hidden from your shop, while its product page stays live at the same address for customers and search engines that already know it.

Out of stock suggests a product is coming back; discontinued tells customers it isn’t. You can discontinue a product straight away, or let it sell its remaining stock first and switch it over when the last unit sells.

When you’d use this

• Retire a product but keep its page, reviews and search ranking.
• Sell through the last units, then retire the product without having to remember it.
• Retire some variations of a product, such as one color, and keep selling the rest.
• Show shoppers a "Last chance to buy" label while the final units sell.
• Keep retired products apart from out of stock ones in your products list and stock filter.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.2 or later, WooCommerce 8.2 or later, and PHP 7.4 or later.
• Compatible with WooCommerce’s cart and checkout blocks and High-Performance Order Storage.
• Works with simple and variable products, and with other plugins’ product types that use WooCommerce’s Stock status field.
• Discontinuing a product when its stock runs out needs WooCommerce’s stock management turned on (WooCommerce » Settings » Products » Inventory, Manage stock).

Install and activate

Discontinued Products is sold on kestrelwp.com:

1. Download the plugin from the Licensed downloads tab of your kestrelwp.com account, then install and activate it in Plugins.
2. Go to Settings » Discontinued Products for WooCommerce activation, enter the license key from your License keys tab, and click Save changes. An activated key lets the plugin receive updates. See using sites against your activation limit for how activations count.

If you’re updating from an earlier version and the activation page shows the plugin as not activated, replace any key in the field with the license key from the License keys tab of your kestrelwp.com account, and click Save changes.

For upload, FTP and update steps, follow how to install and update WooCommerce extensions.

Set up Discontinued Products

1. Check the settings

Go to WooCommerce » Settings » Products » Discontinued products. On a new install, Hide products is on and Discontinued text reads "Discontinued", so discontinued products disappear from your shop straight away. Change anything you need (see Discontinued Products settings) and click Save changes.

2. Discontinue a product

Open the product and go to Product data » Inventory. Set Stock status to Discontinued and click Update.

If there’s no Stock status field, the product tracks its stock quantity. Untick Track stock quantity for this product to discontinue it now, or keep tracking and discontinue it when its stock runs out. For variable products, see Discontinue variations.

3. Check it in your store

Open the product’s page in a private browser window. It shows your Discontinued text in place of the stock message, with no add to cart button. With Hide products on, the product is gone from your shop and category pages and from search results, but its page still loads at the same address.

In Products » All Products, the product shows a Discontinued badge in the Stock column, and Filter by stock status includes Discontinued.

Discontinue a product when its stock runs out

To sell the remaining units first:

1. On the product’s Inventory tab, tick Track stock quantity for this product and enter the Quantity you have left.
2. Tick Discontinue product ("Discontinue product when stock reaches zero").
3. Click Update.

The product sells as normal while it has stock. The switch happens when the customer whose order takes the stock to zero reaches the order confirmation page after checkout. At that point Discontinued Products turns off stock tracking for the product and sets it to Discontinued. Until then, WooCommerce shows it as out of stock.

Stock that reaches zero any other way leaves the product Out of stock: for example, when you change the quantity yourself, create the order in your admin, or the customer pays on another site and doesn’t come back to your store. In those cases, set the product to Discontinued by hand (untick Track stock quantity for this product, then set Stock status).

For a variable product that tracks stock on the main product rather than on each variation, tick Discontinue product on the main product. When its stock runs out, its variations that don’t track their own stock are discontinued together.

To show shoppers that these are the last units, turn on Last chance label.

Discontinue variations

Each variation has its own stock status, so you can retire some variations and keep selling the rest:

• One variation: on the Variations tab, expand the variation, set its Stock status to Discontinued and click Save changes. A variation with Manage stock? ticked has no stock status to set; instead, tick Discontinue variation when stock reaches zero, which appears below its stock fields. It switches over the same way as a product (see Discontinue a product when its stock runs out).
• Every variation: pick Set Status – Discontinued from the bulk actions dropdown at the top of the Variations tab. This also turns off stock tracking on the main product. Variations that track their own stock keep their stock-based status, so untick Manage stock? on those first.

When every variation is discontinued, the whole product counts as discontinued. With Hide products on, discontinued variations drop out of the product’s dropdowns. With it off, they’re still listed, and choosing one shows the Discontinued text instead of an add to cart button.

Discontinue products in bulk

• From the products list: select the products in Products » All Products, choose Edit from Bulk actions and click Apply. Set In stock? to Discontinued and click Update. For a variable product that doesn’t track stock on the main product, every variation is discontinued. Products that track their stock quantity keep their stock-based status.
• With a CSV file: WooCommerce’s product exporter adds an Is discontinued? column, which reads yes for discontinued products. In the product importer, yes in that column marks the product discontinued.

Discontinued Products settings

Go to WooCommerce » Settings » Products » Discontinued products.

Discontinued text

The text shown in place of the stock message on a discontinued product, styled the way your theme styles "Out of stock". Default "Discontinued".

Hide products

Hides discontinued products from your store. On by default. While it’s on, discontinued products and variations are left out of:

• your shop, product category and product tag pages, and other WooCommerce product archives
• product search and your site’s search results
• related products sections
• variation dropdowns on product pages
• the product counts shown next to categories and tags

Product pages stay published, so old links, bookmarks and search results still reach them. Product lists you add to a page with a block or a shortcode such as [products] aren’t covered (see Discontinued products still show on a page).

With Hide products off, discontinued products stay in your product lists, but they can’t be added to the cart from there.

Show label

Shows the Label text over the featured image of discontinued products, in product lists and on the product page. Off by default. Where the label sits depends on your theme.

Label text

The text of that label. Default "Discontinued". Shown when Show label is ticked.

Last chance label

Shows the Last chance text on products that will be discontinued when their stock runs out, while they still have stock. It applies to products with Discontinue product ticked and variations with Discontinue variation when stock reaches zero ticked, and only while they track stock with a quantity above zero. A variable product shows it if any of its variations qualifies. Off by default.

The label appears above the product title in product lists, and below the short description on the product page.

Last chance text

The text of the last chance label. Default "Last chance to buy". If you leave it empty, the default is used.

What customers see

• On the product page: your Discontinued text in place of the stock message, no add to cart button, and the label on the main image if Show label is on.
• In your shop: nothing, while Hide products is on. With it off, the product is listed but can’t be added to the cart.
• In search engines: discontinued pages stay published, so they can keep ranking and bring visitors to your store. If you’d rather they dropped out, set them to noindex with your SEO plugin, or redirect each one to a replacement product.

Discontinued Products changes nothing at the cart, checkout, in emails or in My Account.

Deactivate or reactivate the plugin

The Discontinued status belongs to the plugin, so deactivating it switches every discontinued product and variation to Out of stock. They stay unpurchasable, and the plugin remembers which ones they were. When you reactivate it, those products switch back to Discontinued.

Products you put back in stock while the plugin was deactivated stay in stock. Check the stock status of anything you edited in the meantime.

What Discontinued Products stores

• Its settings, and on each product the Discontinue product choice. The Discontinued status itself is WooCommerce’s own stock status field.
• While the plugin is deactivated, a marker on each product it switched to Out of stock.
• Nothing about your customers, and nothing on orders.

Deleting the plugin leaves its settings and product data in place.

License activation and update checks contact kestrelwp.com with your license key and site address.

Newsletter sign-up (optional): if you click Sign up on the plugin’s newsletter prompt in your admin, your name, email address, site name and address, language, and plugin, WordPress, WooCommerce and PHP versions are sent to Kestrel’s email provider, Klaviyo. Nothing is sent unless you sign up.

Compatibility

• WooCommerce Lead Time (Barn2): adds a Discontinued products checkbox to Lead Time’s settings, on by default. While it’s on, the product page of a discontinued product that has a lead time shows the lead time in place of the Discontinued text.
• WooCommerce Bulk Variations (Barn2): with an active license, discontinued variations stay in the variations grid and show the Discontinued text where the quantity box would be.
• Themes: Discontinued Products includes adjustments for Shopkeeper, Bridge, Uncode, JupiterX and Flatsome, and positions the label for many other popular themes.

Common issues

The Stock status field is missing

WooCommerce hides Stock status while a product tracks its stock quantity, and on variable products. Untick Track stock quantity for this product to set the status by hand, or use Discontinue product to switch it when the stock runs out. On a variable product, set the status on each variation (see Discontinue variations).

A product sold out but didn’t switch to Discontinued

The switch happens when the customer whose order sold the last unit reaches the order confirmation page. If the stock reached zero another way (a manual edit, an order you created in your admin, or a customer who didn’t return to your store after paying), the product stays Out of stock. Set it to Discontinued by hand: untick Track stock quantity for this product, then set Stock status.

A variation still switches to Discontinued after you untick the option

Unticking Discontinue variation when stock reaches zero and saving doesn’t clear it, so the variation is still discontinued when it sells out, and still shows the last chance label while it has stock. To put it back on sale after it’s switched, tick Manage stock? on the variation again and enter the new quantity.

Discontinued products still show on a page

Work through these in order:

1. Hide products is ticked under WooCommerce » Settings » Products » Discontinued products.
2. Clear your page cache, or any caching plugin’s cache, and check again.
3. If the page lists products with a block or a shortcode such as [products], set each discontinued product’s Catalog visibility to Hidden in the Publish box of its edit screen. Hide products doesn’t apply to those lists.

"Discontinued" shows in product lists with Show label off

With Hide products off, discontinued products in your product lists show the Label text as plain text even while Show label is off. Turn on Show label to display it as a label instead. To hide it, add this CSS (see how to add custom CSS to your site), and remove it again if you later turn Show label on:

.discontinued-label { display: none; }

The label is missing or in the wrong place

The label’s position depends on your theme’s product markup. Check that Show label is ticked and Label text isn’t empty. If it’s still hidden or misplaced, contact support and tell us which theme you use.

"The Discontinued Products for WooCommerce license key has not been activated, so plugin is inactive!"

This notice appears in your admin until you activate your license key. Discontinued Products keeps working without it, but it can’t receive updates. Click the notice’s link, or go to Settings » Discontinued Products for WooCommerce activation, and activate your key.

Keep learning

• Discontinued Products developer reference (actions and filters)
• How to install and update WooCommerce extensions (installing, updating and fixing upload errors)
• Using sites against your activation limit (how license activations count)
• How to add custom CSS to your site (styling or moving the label)