> ## 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. # Products with Zero/Negative Stock, BigCommerce > Products with Zero/Negative Stock 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:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > The store-wide count of BigCommerce catalogue products with zero or negative stock that are still publicly listed. The hero-tier inventory-hygiene metric: any positive number is direct revenue blocker, fix-or-hide. | | | | --------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(products WHERE inventoryLevel <= 0 AND availability != 'disabled')`. Both zero-stock items and "negative-stock" items (over-sold, BC's inventory went below zero before sync caught up) are counted. | | **VAT / tax treatment** | n/a, inventory metric. | | **Shipping** | n/a. | | **Discounts** | n/a. | | **Refunds** | n/a. | | **Cancelled orders** | n/a. | | **Currency** | n/a (count metric). | | **Channels / sources** | Store-wide store catalogue. The per-channel breakdown lives at [BC Channel OOS per Channel](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/oos-listings-per-channel). | | **`Incomplete` / Declined orders** | n/a. | | **Negative stock quirk** | A product can show `inventoryLevel = -3` if BC sold 3 units after stock hit zero (over-selling tolerance). This is a fulfilment-emergency signal, customers are buying items that won't ship. **Negative stock is more urgent than zero stock.** | | **Definition matches `bc_channel_oos_per_channel`** | The two cards count the same items; this card is the store-wide headline, the channel card is the per-channel slice. | | **Time window** | `RT` (real-time, refreshed each catalogue sync) | | **Alert trigger** | `>0 (any OOS SKU still listed)`, fires on any positive count. Always actionable. | | **Sentiment key** | `out_of_stock_count` | | **Roles** | owner, operations | ## 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. Total catalogue: 1,840 products. | Status | Count | Share | | --------------------------------------------------------- | ------ | -------- | | In stock (`inventoryLevel > 0`) | 1,798 | 97.7% | | Zero stock, listed (this card counts) | 22 | 1.2% | | Negative stock, listed (over-sold; this card also counts) | 3 | 0.2% | | Disabled / hidden | 17 | 0.9% | | **Inventory Alerts (this card)** | **25** | **1.4%** | What's interesting: 1. **1.4% of catalogue is unbuyable but visible.** Healthy stores sit 0-2%; above 5% suggests either a sync problem or a merchandiser not actively managing OOS hygiene. **The 25-item count is workable, an hour of merchandiser time can resolve.** 2. **3 negative-stock items are the urgent priority.** These are over-sold, customers placed orders that won't ship. Each negative-stock entry needs immediate action: either reach out to refund the customer, or expedite restock. **Negative stock is a customer-experience emergency, not just a hygiene issue.** 3. **The 22 zero-stock items split by velocity.** High-velocity zero-stock items are top-priority restocks; low-velocity items can be hidden until restock. Use [BC Stock vs Sales](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/stock-vs-sales-velocity) for the velocity ranking. 4. **The 17 disabled items don't count toward the alert.** Correct hygiene. Merchants who use `availability = disabled` properly are punished by neither this card nor the per-channel OOS card. Action priority order: 1. **Investigate the 3 negative-stock items immediately.** Customer-service contact list, refund-or-expedite decisions per customer. 2. **Hide low-velocity zero-stock items** (`availability = disabled`). 3. **Restock high-velocity zero-stock items** (use [BC Top SKUs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/top-skus) to find which). 4. **Audit inventory sync** if the count is persistently above 5%, the sync gap is a structural issue, not just a merchandising oversight. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Inventory Alerts | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [BC Channel OOS per Channel](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/oos-listings-per-channel) | The per-channel breakdown of the same population. | | [BC Stock vs Sales](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/stock-vs-sales-velocity) | Velocity-weighted view; tells you which OOS items are urgent. | | [BC Top SKUs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/top-skus) | Cross-reference: top-selling SKUs in this list = five-alarm event. | | [BC Top SKUs Revenue](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/top-skus-by-revenue) | Revenue impact view. | | [BC Inventory Distribution](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/inventory-distribution) | The healthy-stock baseline; this card is the unhealthy slice. | | [BC XC Ads on OOS](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/active-ads-on-out-of-stock-skus) | Compounds the cost: paying ads to drive traffic to OOS items. | | [BC Alert OOS Spike](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/oos-spike-alert) | Trend alert; fires when OOS count grows quickly (supplier outage). | | [BC Refunded Products](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/most-refunded-products) | Sometimes correlates: items that customers couldn't get fulfilled and refunded. | ## 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 Visibility = Disabled. The result count should match this card to within 1-2 items. Other BC views: * **Settings → Inventory**: configures inventory tracking; doesn't surface counts. * **Catalogue → Categories**: groups products into categories. * **Reports → Inventory snapshot** (Plus / Pro): partial overlap, daily cadence. **Why our number may legitimately differ from BC catalogue:** | Reason | Direction | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | **Variant-level vs product-level**. We count at variant level for products with variants. BC's product list shows "1 product" for a multi-variant item even if some variants are OOS. | Vortex IQ HIGHER than naive product-level filter | | **Sync lag**. Inventory updates take 5-30 minutes to propagate. Recent stock-ins may still show as OOS. | Vortex IQ LAGS BC for short windows | | **Disabled exclusion**. We exclude `availability = disabled`; BC's catalogue filter may include them. | Vortex IQ LOWER if merchant uses disable correctly | | **Negative stock**. We count negative stock; BC's filter may not. | Vortex IQ HIGHER if over-sold items exist | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | Notes | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | | [`google_ads.ga_oos_items`](/nerve-centre/google_ads/ga_oos_items) | Google Shopping merchant-feed OOS items overlap with this card. | Sync lag drives small differences. | | [`amazon_sp.amazon_oos_listings`](/nerve-centre/amazon_sp/amazon_oos_listings) | Amazon-side OOS state. | Channel Manager sync gaps cause discrepancies. | ***
Same-metric documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple platforms) * [`shopify.inventory_alerts`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/products-with-zero-negative-stock) (planned) * [`adobe_commerce.inventory_alerts`](/nerve-centre/adobe_commerce/inventory_alerts) (planned)
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Why does the alert fire on >0?** Because OOS-but-listed is *always* actionable. The right state for a stocked-out item is hidden, preorder, or restocked, never visible-but-unbuyable. Even one OOS-and-visible item is worth 30 seconds of merchandiser attention. **What's negative stock and how does it happen?** BC supports over-selling tolerance: a product can ship beyond its on-hand count if the merchant configured the buffer. Negative stock means BC sold N more units than it had; if your warehouse can fulfil, no problem; if it can't, you have customers waiting on un-shippable orders. **Negative stock + cannot-fulfil is a customer-service emergency.** **Why is my count climbing every week?** Three usual causes: (1) Supplier outage, multiple SKUs going OOS simultaneously suggests one supplier stopped delivering. (2) Inventory sync drift, the warehouse-to-BC integration is dropping updates; check sync logs. (3) Merchandiser disengagement, no one's actively hiding OOS items. Each has a different fix. **Should I auto-hide OOS items?** For most stores, yes. Most BC themes support an `if inventoryLevel > 0` condition; setting it once means OOS items disappear automatically from category and search pages. Direct PDP URLs may still load, but the customer journey is significantly cleaner. **Do this once and it's done.** **Should I keep highly-popular OOS items visible to capture restock-notify signups?** Yes for items with strong restock-notify intent. The Klaviyo back-in-stock flow converts at 12-25% when the item returns; capturing emails on a popular OOS PDP is genuinely valuable. **Use preorder mode where possible**, and fall back to "notify me" for indefinite-restock items. **Why doesn't BC show a single 'OOS dashboard' natively?** BC's catalogue UI is built around individual SKUs, not store-wide hygiene reports. Plus / Pro plans have partial inventory reports, but the active "what's broken right now" view doesn't exist natively. This card fills that gap. **My count is 0, am I done?** For inventory hygiene specifically, yes. But pair with [BC Channel OOS per Channel](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/oos-listings-per-channel) (per-channel breakdown often reveals issues this card doesn't), [BC Inventory Distribution](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/inventory-distribution) (low-but-not-zero stock patterns), and [BC Stock vs Sales](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/stock-vs-sales-velocity) (velocity-weighted view of which OOS items hurt most). **Zero alert count is necessary but not sufficient for healthy inventory.** **Multi-warehouse stores: does this card respect MLI (Multi-Location Inventory)?** Yes; we count items where TOTAL inventory across all locations is zero. Items where one location has zero but another has stock don't appear here, that's a fulfilment-routing question, not an OOS question. **Why does the card sometimes briefly spike then resolve?** Inventory sync timing. A stock-in event takes 5-30 minutes to propagate from warehouse to BC; during that window the items show as zero. The card's RT refresh catches the transient state and resolves at the next sync. **Should this number ever be non-zero by design?** **Almost never.** Sustained non-zero counts are merchant-disengagement signal. The exceptions: (1) Brief windows during stock-in events. (2) Items deliberately listed for restock-notify capture. (3) Pre-order items with `inventoryLevel = 0` but availability = preorder (we exclude these correctly). Outside these, zero is the right operating state. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Products with Zero/Negative Stock* 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.