> ## 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. # Product Status, BigCommerce > Product Status for BigCommerce stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Supporting Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Catalogue product count grouped by `availability` (active / disabled / preorder). Tells you the operational state of your catalogue: how many products are live to customers, how many are hidden, how many are pre-orderable. Drift in this distribution often signals catalogue-management hygiene issues. | | | | ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `GROUP BY availability.keyword` over every product in the BC catalogue. The `availability` field has three canonical values: `available` (live), `disabled` (hidden from storefront), `preorder` (orderable but not yet shipped). | | **VAT / tax treatment** | n/a, catalogue metadata. | | **Shipping** | n/a. | | **Discounts** | n/a. | | **Refunds** | n/a. | | **Cancelled / voided orders** | n/a. | | **Currency** | n/a. | | **Channels / sources** | This is a catalogue-level count, but BC's Channel Manager allows per-channel availability overrides. A product `available` at the catalogue level can be `disabled` on a specific channel. We count at the catalogue level by default; per-channel decomposition is on the V2 backlog. | | **The three states explained** | `available`: customer can see and buy. The healthy default. `disabled`: hidden from storefront browse and search; direct URL still works. Used for OOS items, seasonal items off-season, and discontinued items. `preorder`: customer can order but the item ships at a later date; useful for pre-launch demand capture and back-in-stock pre-bookings. | | **Why disabled count matters** | A growing disabled-product count is usually catalogue debt: items the merchandising team disabled instead of deleting. Each disabled product still consumes platform slots, file-library storage, and admin-page load time. Most stores accumulate 10-30% catalogue rot over 2-3 years if not actively pruned. | | **Preorder usage signal** | Most BC stores show \<2% preorder share. Stores actively using preorder (>5%) have figured out how to capture demand for delayed items, a sophisticated catalogue practice that lifts revenue without inventory risk. | | **B2B Edition** | B2B-only catalogues often have higher disabled share because procurement-only SKUs are hidden from retail. Acceptable for hybrid stores; a B2B-only store with 50% disabled is functioning differently. | | **Time window** | `RT` (real-time, refreshed each catalogue sync) | | **Alert trigger** | None at this card. Pair with [Inventory Alerts](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/products-with-zero-negative-stock) for stock-driven status changes. | | **Roles** | owner, operations | ## Calculation ``` GROUP BY availability.keyword WHERE date BETWEEN [period_start, period_end] ``` ## Worked example A US homewares brand on BigCommerce Pro with 4,820 active SKUs out of a larger catalogue, snapshot at 12 Apr 26. | Status | Product count | Share | Notes | | ------------------- | ------------- | -------- | ---------------------------------- | | `available` | 4,820 | 73.4% | Live to customers | | `disabled` | 1,680 | 25.6% | **Hidden, mostly OOS or seasonal** | | `preorder` | 65 | 1.0% | Pre-launch demand capture | | **Total catalogue** | **6,565** | **100%** | | What's interesting: 1. **25.6% disabled is high.** Healthy disabled share is 5-15%. At 25.6% the catalogue carries a lot of dead weight; either OOS items waiting for restock (acceptable if temporary), seasonal items off-season (acceptable for fashion/holidays), or genuinely abandoned SKUs that should be archived (the catalogue rot pattern). 2. **Drilling the disabled bucket usually reveals 3 sub-segments.** (a) Recent OOS waiting restock (50-70%): keep these, they'll come back. (b) Seasonal off-season (15-30%): keep these, they'll come back next year. (c) Abandoned / discontinued (10-20%): archive these, they're not coming back. 3. **1.0% preorder share is healthy.** Most stores show \<0.5% because they don't proactively use preorder. A store using preorder for back-in-stock notifications and pre-launch capture sees 2-5%; this store at 1% is in mid-curve. 4. **The catalogue carries 6,565 products** but only 4,820 (73.4%) are sellable. From a customer perspective the store has a 4,820-SKU range. From a merchandising perspective the team is managing 6,565. **Pruning the abandoned 10-20% of disabled products simplifies operations without affecting customer experience.** 5. **Per-channel availability creates hidden complexity.** The headline `available` count of 4,820 may mask that 200 of those are disabled on Amazon, 150 are disabled on B2B portal, etc. Channel-specific availability is a Channel Manager feature, audit it separately. The cleanup playbook: 1. **Audit the disabled bucket quarterly.** Sort by `dateModified` descending; products disabled more than 18 months ago are candidates for archive. 2. **Archive vs delete decision.** Archive (BC has no native "archive" state, but `availability = disabled` + custom tag works) preserves URL history for SEO; delete loses URL and breaks any links. Default to archive; delete only if SEO history is irrelevant. 3. **Use preorder more aggressively for restock-known items.** When you know an OOS item ships in 14-28 days, switch from disabled to preorder; capture demand instead of losing it. Stores using preorder see 30-60% of would-be lost demand convert. 4. **Monitor the disabled-share trend.** A growing share over months means catalogue management is falling behind; flat or shrinking is healthy housekeeping. 5. **For B2B + retail hybrid stores**, audit per-channel availability. Hidden-on-retail-but-available-on-B2B is a legitimate state but should be intentional, not accidental. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Product Status | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Inventory Alerts](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/products-with-zero-negative-stock) | Low-stock products often transition to disabled. The two cards together show stock-driven status changes. | | [BC Inventory Distribution](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/inventory-distribution) | The stock-on-hand picture; combined with status shows OOS-but-still-listed gaps. | | [Products by Type](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/products-by-type) | Type decomposition. Disabled share usually concentrates in 1-2 types. | | [Products by Vendor](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/products-by-vendor) | Brand decomposition. Disabled share by brand reveals supplier-relationship issues. | | [Top Products](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/top-products-by-revenue) | Top revenue products in disabled state are urgent. | | [Bottom Products](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/slow-moving-products) | Tail-end. Most disabled items are bottom-tier; bottom-product cleanup overlaps with disabled cleanup. | | [Missing SEO Title Count](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/missing-seo-title-count) | Catalogue-health peer. SEO gaps + disabled gaps cluster in the same bad-hygiene cohort. | | [BC Channel OOS per Channel](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/oos-listings-per-channel) | Per-channel OOS view. Disabled at catalogue level + OOS at channel level differ. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel:** [Catalogue → Products](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/products) supports a Visibility filter that mirrors this card's distribution. The filter values are "Visible" (= `available`), "Not Visible" (= `disabled`), and "Preorder" (= `preorder`). Bulk operations on the disabled bucket are available from the catalogue view. For per-channel availability, [Channel Manager](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/channel-manager) → channel → "Listings" tab shows products available on that channel; difference vs catalogue-level `available` count surfaces channel-specific overrides. **Why our number may legitimately differ from BC catalogue view:** | Reason | Direction | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | | **Variant-level visibility.** BC supports product-level and variant-level visibility. We aggregate at product level; variant-only-disabled products show as `available` here. | Vortex IQ HIGHER `available` count | | **Custom availability values.** Some BC apps add custom states beyond the canonical three; we count them under "other". | Mixed | | **Channel overrides.** This card is catalogue-level. BC's Channel Manager view is per-channel. The two should differ on multi-channel stores; the difference is the channel-override magnitude. | Different scope | | **Sync lag.** Status changes propagate within 5-30 minutes. | Vortex IQ slightly LAGS | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`google_search_console.gsc_indexed_pages`](/nerve-centre/google_search_console/gsc_indexed_pages) | Available products should be indexed; disabled products should not be (after Google re-crawl) | Sync timing: Google may take 7-30 days to de-index newly-disabled products. | | [`amazon_sp.amazon_listing_status`](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amazon_listing_status) | Amazon-side listing status correlates with this card's `available` slice | Channel Manager may publish to Amazon with different rules; a product `available` at catalogue may be `inactive` on Amazon. | **Same-metric documentation cross-reference:** * [`shopify.product_status`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/product-status) (planned) * [`adobe_commerce.product_status`](/nerve-centre/adobe_commerce/product_status) (planned) ## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **My disabled share is 30%, is that a problem?** Likely. Healthy is 5-15%. At 30% the catalogue carries operational debt: storage, admin-page load, sync overhead. Run a quarterly cleanup to archive items disabled more than 18 months. Keep recently-disabled (OOS, off-season) items. **Should I delete disabled products or keep them?** Default to keep (disabled, not deleted). Deletion loses the URL, breaking inbound links and SEO history. Disabled preserves the URL and lets you re-enable later. Only delete when the product is genuinely never coming back AND has no inbound link value. **Why is my preorder share so low?** Most stores don't proactively use preorder. The mechanism is a missed opportunity: when a popular item runs OOS with a known restock date, switching from disabled to preorder captures demand. Customers commit to preorder at 50-80% of in-stock conversion, materially better than just being told "out of stock". **Can I bulk-disable products via API?** Yes. The PUT `/catalog/products/{id}` endpoint accepts `availability`. Bulk-update via API takes 5-15 minutes for 100-500 products. Always backup first; bulk operations are hard to reverse precisely. **My theme shows "out of stock" overlays on disabled products, why?** Theme-side override. Some Stencil themes treat `availability = disabled` AND `inventoryLevel = 0` as "show with OOS overlay" rather than hide. Audit your theme's `_show_product` logic if this is a concern. **Should disabled products appear in marketplace feeds?** No. BC's Channel Manager filters disabled products out of marketplace feeds by default. If they're showing on Amazon / Google Shopping, the channel-specific availability override is wrong; check Channel Manager → channel → product list. **My catalogue grew from 5K to 6.5K products in a year, but disabled grew from 500 to 1,680, what changed?** Catalogue accretion outpacing pruning. Common pattern: merchandising team adds new SKUs faster than they archive old ones. The right intervention is a "every Q1 prune" cycle: archive anything disabled more than 12 months at the start of each year. **My B2B-only catalogue has 80% disabled (only retail-public items show as available), is that right?** For a hybrid retail+B2B store with private B2B catalogue, yes. The "available" share reflects retail-visible items; B2B-only items are intentionally `disabled` for retail. Audit Channel Manager to confirm; if your B2B-only items are accidentally hidden from the B2B portal too, the configuration is broken. **Does disabled affect SEO?** Eventually yes. Once Google re-crawls and sees the disabled URL returns 404 or noindex, it drops from index. The lag is typically 7-30 days. For SEO-significant disabled products (high-traffic historical URLs), set up 301 redirects to relevant alternatives instead of leaving them disabled. **Can I see the disabled product list filtered by category?** Yes from BC Catalogue → Products with combined Visibility + Category filter. The bulk-action UI from there lets you re-enable, archive, or delete in batches. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Product Status* 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.