> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # OOS Listings per Channel, BigCommerce > Listings showing on a channel with stock_level=0, direct revenue blocker per channel. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) > Listings showing on a channel with stock\_level=0, direct revenue blocker per channel. ## At a glance > The count of catalogue listings on each BigCommerce channel where `inventoryLevel = 0` and `availability = 'available'`. These are listings the customer can still see but cannot buy, a direct revenue blocker that costs the merchant attention every minute it persists. | | | | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(products WHERE inventoryLevel = 0 AND availability != 'disabled') GROUP BY channel_id`. Per-channel because OOS impact differs by channel: a hero SKU OOS on Stencil web blocks the storefront's primary funnel; the same SKU OOS on a marginal Facebook Shop is less urgent. | | **VAT / tax treatment** | n/a, inventory metric. | | **Shipping** | n/a. | | **Discounts** | n/a. | | **Refunds** | n/a, this is an inventory snapshot. | | **Currency** | n/a, count metric. | | **Channels / sources** | **Per-channel breakdown** is the entire point of the card. Each `channel_id` shows its own OOS count and the dollar-velocity weight (revenue per day this SKU usually generates on this channel). | | **`Incomplete` / Declined orders** | n/a. | | **OOS definition gotcha** | We count listings where `inventoryLevel = 0` but `availability` is not `disabled`. A merchant who toggles `availability = disabled` properly when stock runs out is correctly hidden from this count; merchants who leave OOS items live with `availability = available` are surfaced here. The latter is the failure mode, customers see the listing, click through, find it unavailable, and bounce. | | **Velocity-weighted ranking** | Within each channel, OOS listings are sorted by historical revenue velocity (30-day average revenue per day pre-OOS). The top OOS by velocity is the most urgent to restock or hide; the long tail is less material. | | **Time window** | `RT` (real-time, refreshed each catalogue sync; typically every 15-30 minutes) | | **Alert trigger** | `>0`, any positive count fires the alert. The Vortex IQ Nerve Centre treats OOS-on-live-listing as always-actionable, OOS items should be hidden, restocked, or marked as preorder, never left in zombie state. | | **Sentiment key** | `out_of_stock_count` | | **Roles** | owner, operations, marketing | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your BigCommerce data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example A US homewares brand on BigCommerce Enterprise. Snapshot at 09:00 UTC on 13 Apr 26. | `channel_id` | Channel | OOS count | Top OOS SKU (by velocity) | Daily lost revenue | | --------------- | ---------------------- | --------- | --------------------------------------------- | ------------------ | | `1` | Stencil web | 14 | "Linen 4-piece bedding set, King" (\$340/day) | \~\$1,180 | | `1019847` | Amazon Channel Manager | 6 | "Towel set 6pk, ivory" (\$180/day) | \~\$420 | | `1019850` | Facebook Shop | 2 | "Throw cushion 18inch" (\$35/day) | \~\$50 | | `1020114` | POS Terminal A | 0 | n/a | n/a | | **Store total** | | **22** | | **\~\$1,650/day** | What's interesting: 1. \*\*$1,650/day of revenue blocked by OOS**, $50k/month, $600k/year if the situation persists. **The single highest-leverage operational fix on most BC stores is "go hide your OOS listings".** It costs 15 minutes; it generates $1k+/day back. 2. **Web carries the most urgent OOS.** A bedding set at $340/day is a hero SKU; every hour it's listed-but-unbuyable costs ~$14. Customers who came specifically for this SKU bounce and don't return. 3. **Amazon OOS is structurally different.** Amazon penalises sellers for OOS listings (the listing's BSR drops, the buy box may be lost to a competitor seller). The cost is not just lost direct revenue but reduced future ranking. **Set Channel Manager → Amazon to auto-hide OOS items**; do not leave them visible. 4. **Facebook Shop OOS is low-urgency.** Two items at low velocity, fix during the next merchandising review. Don't drop everything for it. 5. **POS Terminal A shows zero OOS** because POS-only catalogue is typically smaller and tightly managed by the in-store team. Healthy pattern. Action priority order: 1. **Hide / disable** all OOS items on Stencil web (14 listings, biggest revenue blockers). Most BC themes have a one-click "hide if `inventoryLevel = 0`" rule, ensure it's enabled. 2. **Restock the top 3 by velocity**, the bedding set, top Amazon SKU, and any other items above \$100/day velocity. 3. **Consider preorder / backorder tagging** for items with known restock dates, customers will commit if they see "ships 12 May 26" rather than just "out of stock". 4. **Set per-channel auto-hide rules** in Channel Manager so this card always reads zero on marketplaces (Amazon and eBay penalise sellers harshly for OOS-but-listed). 5. **Audit your inventory sync** if OOS counts are persistently high, the underlying issue is usually a sync gap between BC and your warehouse / ERP. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with OOS Listings per Channel | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Inventory Alerts](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/products-with-zero-negative-stock) | The store-wide inventory headline. This card disaggregates by channel. | | [BC Stock vs Sales](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/stock-vs-sales-velocity) | The velocity-weighted view. Tells you which OOS items are urgent (high velocity) and which are tail-end (can wait). | | [BC Inventory Distribution](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/inventory-distribution) | The healthy-stock baseline. Lets you see whether OOS is concentrated or distributed across the catalogue. | | [BC Alert OOS Spike](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/oos-spike-alert) | The trend alert. Fires when OOS count grows quickly, often signalling a supplier outage. | | [BC Top SKUs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/top-skus) | Cross-reference: if your top-selling SKUs appear in this card, that's a five-alarm event. | | [BC Top SKUs Revenue](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/top-skus-by-revenue) | The revenue-impact view. Multiply OOS days by daily velocity for the lost-revenue estimate. | | [BC Channel Revenue Mix](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/revenue-mix-by-channel) | Context for prioritisation, OOS on a 70%-of-revenue channel matters more than OOS on a 1% channel. | | [BC XC Ads on OOS](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/active-ads-on-out-of-stock-skus) | The cross-connector overlap with Google Ads, paying to drive traffic to OOS items is double-burn. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel:** [Products → View](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/products), filter by Inventory level = 0, exclude items with Visibility = Disabled. The list should match the store-wide OOS count to within 1-2 (boundary timing). For per-channel breakdown, [Channel Manager](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/channel-manager) → per-channel listings shows OOS at the channel-listing layer. Other BC views that look adjacent: * **Catalogue → Categories**: groups products into categories, doesn't surface OOS directly. * **Settings → Inventory**: configures inventory tracking; doesn't surface counts. * **Reports → Inventory snapshot** (Plus / Pro): partial overlap, runs on a daily cadence rather than real-time. **Why our number may legitimately differ from BC Catalogue:** | Reason | Direction | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | **Variant-vs-product semantics**. BC supports product-level and variant-level inventory; we count at the variant level for products with variants. BC's product list shows "1 product" for a multi-variant item even if 3 of 5 variants are OOS. | Vortex IQ HIGHER count than naive product-level filter | | **Channel publication state**. A product can exist in BC catalogue but not be published to a specific channel. We count only published listings per channel. | Vortex IQ LOWER count per channel than total catalogue OOS | | **Sync lag**. Inventory updates from warehouse / ERP take 5-30 minutes to propagate to OpenSearch. Recent stock-ins may still show as OOS. | Vortex IQ slightly LAGS BC for short windows | | **Disabled / Visibility = false**. We exclude `availability = disabled`. Some merchants use this state to "soft-hide" OOS items. | Vortex IQ LOWER count if merchant uses disable correctly | | **Backorder / Preorder**. Items configured as preorder may carry `inventoryLevel = 0` but should not count as urgent OOS. We surface them with a flag; some merchants want to exclude them entirely. | Mixed | **Cross-connector reconciliation (when ad / marketplace integrations are connected):** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | [`google_ads.ga_oos_items`](/nerve-centre/google_ads/ga_oos_items) | Google Ads merchant-feed OOS items should overlap with the web `channel_id = 1` slice of this card | Google Ads runs its own inventory feed; sync lag can cause mismatches. | | [`amazon_sp.amazon_oos_listings`](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amazon_oos_listings) | Amazon SP-API exposes inventory-level data per listing; should match the Amazon channel slice | Amazon's "currently unavailable" includes more states than just OOS (e.g. account-level suppression). | | [`google_analytics.ga_no_inventory_clicks`](/nerve-centre/google_analytics/ga_no_inventory_clicks) | GA4 ecommerce events fire `view_item` on OOS items; cross-checking shows wasted-traffic dollars | GA4 doesn't differentiate OOS view from in-stock view by default; requires custom event configuration. | **The per-channel OOS view is BC-aligned with similar cards on Shopify (per `salesChannelIds`) and Adobe Commerce (per `website_id`); the field shapes differ but the merchant-facing semantics are equivalent.** ***
Same-metric documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple platforms) * [`shopify.oos_per_channel`](/nerve-centre/shopify/oos_per_channel) (planned) * [`adobe_commerce.oos_per_website`](/nerve-centre/adobe_commerce/oos_per_website) (planned)
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Why does the alert trigger fire on >0? Even one OOS item?** Because OOS-on-live-listing is *always actionable*. The right state for a stocked-out item is either (a) hidden, (b) marked preorder, or (c) restocked. Leaving items live-but-unbuyable wastes traffic, hurts SEO ranking signals, and degrades customer experience. **The alert is a nudge, not an emergency**, but it should always result in either resolution or an explicit "yes, leave it visible" decision, never a "we'll deal with it later". **My OOS list keeps showing the same items, what's wrong?** Either (a) you don't have an auto-hide rule configured on your theme, OR (b) your inventory sync to BC is broken, the warehouse says "we have stock" but BC still reads zero. Check the [BC Inventory Distribution](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/inventory-distribution) view to see whether the count is real OOS or a sync artefact. **Why does Amazon penalise me for OOS more than other channels?** Amazon's algorithm treats OOS as a buyer-experience failure. The listing's BSR (Best Sellers Rank) drops; the buy box may move to competitor sellers; the product can be temporarily delisted from search. **For Amazon, OOS-but-listed is materially worse than OOS-but-hidden.** Set Channel Manager → Amazon to auto-hide on OOS, full stop. **My theme auto-hides OOS items, but they still show up in this card?** The auto-hide rule on most BC themes only hides items from category browse pages and search; the direct product URL still loads. We count any product where `inventoryLevel = 0` regardless of theme-side hiding. To fully hide an OOS item, set `availability = disabled` in the BC admin (Channel Manager will then exclude it from listings on every channel). **Should I leave items as preorder instead of hiding?** **Yes for items with known restock dates within 14-21 days.** Customers commit to preorder at meaningful rates (often 50-80% of in-stock conversion); for delayed-restock items it's a way to capture demand instead of losing it. For items with uncertain restock dates, hide rather than preorder, broken promises hurt brand more than missed orders. **Why is my POS Terminal A showing zero OOS?** POS catalogues are typically smaller and tightly managed; inventory is checked physically at the till. POS systems also commonly use a "decrement on sale" model that keeps inventory more accurate than warehouse-fed web channels. Zero OOS on POS is the healthy norm. **My Channel Manager OOS count is much higher than BC catalogue, why?** Channel Manager listings can drift out of sync with BC catalogue. Common causes: (1) marketplace-specific listing variants that don't exist in BC catalogue (Amazon-only variant SKUs, Walmart-specific bundles); (2) Channel Manager queue backlog after bulk inventory updates; (3) marketplace approval delays where BC pushed an availability change but the marketplace hasn't ack'd yet. Run [Channel Manager](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/channel-manager) → Activity log to see sync state. **The lost-revenue figure looks high, is it accurate?** It's an estimate based on the SKU's pre-OOS 30-day average daily revenue. **Treat it as ±30% accurate**, the actual lost revenue depends on whether customers substitute to a similar in-stock item, switch to a competitor, or just walk away. For most homewares / fashion stores \~30-50% of would-be OOS demand substitutes; the rest is genuine lost revenue. **Should I notify customers when OOS items come back?** Yes, restock-notify lists convert at 12-25% on average. BC's native back-in-stock email (Plus / Pro plans) or third-party apps like Klaviyo back-in-stock flow capture customer emails on OOS pages and email when restocked. **This is the highest-ROI single action on a high-OOS catalogue.** **My multi-warehouse store shows OOS even though stock exists in another warehouse, why?** BC's inventory model historically aggregated across warehouses; Multi-Location Inventory (MLI) in newer BC versions tracks per-location stock. We follow whatever BC indexes; if your channel is configured to fulfill from a specific location and that location is at zero, the listing shows OOS even if other locations have stock. Configure your channels with multi-location fulfilment fallback to avoid this. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *OOS Listings per Channel* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across BigCommerce and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.