Set it to zero - do not try to delete it
A product you cannot supply any more is taken off sale by setting its stock to zero, not by removing it. Open Products, find the product, open its Offers Matrix, set Availability and On Order to 0 and save. Your offer stays where it is, with its price, its identifiers and its history; it is simply no longer offered to shoppers. When the goods come back, type the quantity into the same box - nothing has to be matched, imported or approved again.
There is no penalty for having zero stock. There is a penalty for keeping stock you cannot deliver.
What shoppers see
- With no sellable offer left, the product drops out of search, category pages and the homepage.
- If other merchants sell the same product, the page stays up and their offer takes over - your zeroed offer costs you nothing there.
- Orders already placed are not affected. They still have to be confirmed and shipped.
If you can still get it, just not today
Use On Order instead of zero, and set your lead time in Settings → Shipping → On-order delivery time. Be careful with it: confirming an on-order order is a promise of a date, and a promise you miss is cancelled, refunded and penalised. Use it only for goods you can genuinely obtain. See Products available on order.
If your catalogue comes from a feed
- Best: keep the item in the feed with quantity
0. IVO writes that zero onto your offer at the next sync, within six hours. - If you remove the item from the feed instead, nothing happens by default - IVO keeps the last quantity it saw and carries on selling. Switch on Set out of stock for missing products for that feed in Settings → Integrations and everything that disappears from the feed goes to zero on its own.
If your catalogue comes from a plugin
Set the stock to 0 in your own shop and let the plugin sync it. Deleting or unpublishing the product in your shop is less reliable: many platforms then send nothing at all, and the offer stays alive on IVO at its last quantity. After the sync, open Products and check that it really shows zero.
If the whole shop is closed
Deactivate the location in Settings → Merchant Points (or send is_active: false through the API). Every offer at that point goes offline together, and one switch brings them all back.
An order has already arrived for it
Deal with it inside the confirmation window - the sooner, the cheaper:
- You have some of the units: open the order and use Partial Confirm, entering the quantity you really have. The customer is refunded the difference, including the part of the shipping that is no longer due.
- You have none: press Refuse Order. The customer is refunded straight away and a refused-order penalty (100 MDL by default) is charged.
- You do nothing: the worst outcome. Past the deadline the order is cancelled for you, the customer is refunded and the expired-order penalty (200 MDL by default) is charged - twice the cost of refusing.
Then set the offer to zero, so the next shopper is not sold the same missing item. Details: How to avoid penalties on IVO.
Discontinued for good
Zero is the answer here too. An offer at zero costs nothing, keeps your history, and makes relisting a single keystroke if the item ever returns. If you really need it removed, open a support request telling us which product and which location.