# How to Add a “Sold” Item to WooCommerce: A Comprehensive Guide
WooCommerce is a powerful e-commerce platform, but sometimes you might need to mark an item as sold without removing it entirely from your product catalog. This is particularly useful for showcasing popular items, maintaining inventory history, or preventing accidental re-ordering. This article will guide you through several effective methods to add a “Sold” status to your WooCommerce products.
Understanding the Need to Mark Items as Sold
Before diving into the methods, let’s clarify why marking items as sold is beneficial:
- Maintaining Inventory History: Tracking sold items provides valuable data for sales analysis and future stock management.
- Showcasing Popular Products: Displaying sold-out items can create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to check back for restocks.
- Preventing Accidental Orders: Clearly indicating an item’s unavailability prevents frustrated customers from placing orders that cannot be fulfilled.
- Improved Customer Experience: Transparency about product availability leads to a better shopping experience.
- Navigate to your product in the WooCommerce dashboard.
- Edit the product.
- Under the “Inventory” tab, set the “Stock” to “0”.
- Under the “Product data” tab, go to the “Inventory” section and uncheck “Manage stock?” This will hide the product from the shop and prevent orders. This is a quick fix, but it doesn’t explicitly display a “Sold” status.
- Go to Products → Attributes.
- Add a new attribute: Name it “Sold Status” or similar.
- Create attribute terms: “Sold”, “In Stock”, etc.
- Edit your products and assign the “Sold” term to the relevant products. This requires manually updating each product. You can then filter products based on this attribute in your theme’s code.
Methods to Add a “Sold” Status to WooCommerce Products
There are several ways to achieve this, ranging from simple plugin solutions to custom code modifications. Choose the method that best suits your technical skills and WooCommerce setup.
Method 1: Using a WooCommerce Plugin
The easiest and most recommended approach is utilizing a plugin specifically designed for this purpose. Several plugins offer features to mark products as “Sold Out” or add custom statuses beyond WooCommerce’s built-in options. Search the WordPress plugin repository for “sold out” or “product status”. Install and activate a plugin that meets your needs. Many plugins offer additional features, like back-in-stock notifications.
Method 2: Modifying Product Visibility (Simple Method)
This method doesn’t add a “Sold” label, but hides the product from shop pages, achieving a similar effect.
Method 3: Customizing Product Attributes (Intermediate)
You can create a custom attribute to explicitly mark a product as sold.
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Method 4: Using Custom Code (Advanced)
For advanced users comfortable with code, you can modify WooCommerce’s core functionality to add a “Sold” status. This method requires significant PHP knowledge and carries a risk of breaking your site if not implemented correctly. Always back up your website before making code changes. This might involve modifying the product loop in your theme’s `content-product.php` file or creating a custom plugin. Here’s a conceptual example (this code requires adaptation based on your theme and WooCommerce version):
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//Add a sold-out class to the product if it is not in stock. add_filter( 'woocommerce_shortcode_attributes_product', 'add_sold_out_class_to_product', 10, 2); function add_sold_out_class_to_product( $atts, $shortcode ){ if( ! $atts['product_id'] ){ return $atts; } $product = wc_get_product( $atts['product_id'] ); if( ! $product->is_in_stock() ){ $atts['class'] = 'sold-out'; } return $atts; }
Remember to adjust the CSS (`sold-out`) to reflect your desired styling.
Conclusion
Choosing the right method for adding a “Sold” status to your WooCommerce products depends on your technical abilities and desired functionality. Using a plugin is the easiest and safest option. Modifying product visibility offers a quick solution but lacks the explicit “Sold” indication. Customizing attributes provides more control, and custom code gives you the most flexibility but requires advanced skills. Always back up your website before implementing any code changes. Remember to select the method that best balances ease of use and desired visual representation for your customers.
