The count of Salesforce Commerce Cloud products with the storefront online flag set to false, products that exist in the catalog but are not visible to shoppers.
At a glance
The number of Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC, formerly Demandware) products whose storefront online flag is set to false, meaning they exist in the catalog but are not displayed or purchasable on the storefront. SFCC separates “exists in catalog” from “visible to shoppers” via this online flag, so a product can be fully configured, priced, and stocked yet still be invisible because the flag is off. This card surfaces how much of your catalog is sitting dark, which can be deliberate (seasonal, draft) or an oversight (a product that should be live but is not).
| What it counts | Catalog products with the storefront online flag set to false. These are present in the catalog but suppressed from the storefront. |
| Why it matters | Offline products are catalog work that produces no revenue. Some offline state is intentional (seasonal pull-downs, drafts, discontinued lines kept for history). Some is accidental, a product that finished setup but never had its online flag flipped, or a feed that toggled it off. The accidental cases are silent lost sales. |
| Reading the value | Read it against your normal baseline. A stable offline count that matches your seasonal and draft workflow is fine. A sudden jump usually means a catalog import or feed changed online flags in bulk; a slow creep can mean discontinued products piling up. |
| Online flag | SFCC’s storefront online flag controls whether a product appears on the storefront for a given site. It is distinct from catalog assignment and from stock level. All three must align for a product to be both visible and buyable. |
| Offline vs out of stock | An offline product is hidden regardless of stock. An out-of-stock product may still be visible (shown as unavailable). They are different failure modes and have different fixes. |
| Site scope | The online flag can be set per site / catalog context, so a product can be online on one site and offline on another. Scope depends on how the realm structures catalogs. |
| Unit | number (count of products) |
| Time window | Real-time (RT), the current catalog state |
| Alert trigger | none configured |
| Sentiment key | scc_offline_products |
| Roles | owner, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Salesforce Commerce Cloud 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 retailer on a single SFCC B2C realm with a catalog of 62,600 products (masters plus variants). Snapshot taken 12 Mar 26.| Product state | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Online (online=true) | 58,900 | Visible and shoppable on the storefront |
| Offline, seasonal / draft | 2,100 | Intentionally pulled down or not yet launched |
| Offline, discontinued (kept for history) | 1,200 | Deliberately retired but retained in catalog |
| Offline, no clear reason | 400 | Suspected accidental, finished setup but never switched on |
| Offline Products (online=false) (card) | 3,700 | Sum of all offline states |
- 3,700 offline products is not automatically a problem, but the 400 “no clear reason” rows are. Most of the offline count is deliberate: seasonal pull-downs, drafts, and discontinued lines. The 400 with no obvious reason are the ones to chase, each could be a finished product that simply never had its online flag flipped, which is silent lost revenue.
- The discontinued bucket (1,200) is a housekeeping decision, not a fault. Keeping retired products offline preserves order history and SEO redirects while removing them from the storefront. That is a legitimate pattern. It does inflate this card’s headline, so a slowly rising offline count can simply reflect catalog age rather than a new problem.
- A sudden spike points at a catalog import or feed. If this number jumps overnight, a PIM sync or catalog feed likely toggled online flags in bulk. That is the most common cause of an unexpected swing and is worth verifying against the last import run. Pair with Total Products to see whether the total moved too.
- Offline is not the same as out of stock. None of these 3,700 are necessarily out of stock, and an out-of-stock product can still be online and visible. To find products that are visible but unbuyable, use Out-of-Stock Products instead, the two cards catch different leaks.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Offline Products (online=false) |
|---|---|
| Total Products | The denominator. Offline as a share of total tells you how much of the catalog is dark. |
| Out-of-Stock Products | The other “not buyable” failure mode. Offline is hidden; out-of-stock is visible-but-unavailable. Different fixes. |
| Master vs Variant Product Count | Helps you tell whether offline is whole styles (masters) or scattered variants. |
| Low-Stock Products | The early-warning sibling to out-of-stock; a product taken offline can mask a stock problem you never fixed. |
| Top Products by Revenue | Cross-check: if a former top seller has quietly gone offline, that is a revenue alarm. |
Reconciling against Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Where to look in Business Manager: SFCC’s admin tool is Business Manager, at a per-realm URL likehttps://<realm>.business.demandware.net. To inspect the online flag:
- Merchant Tools, Products and Catalogs, Products: the product list. Use the Online filter to show products that are online=false. The result count in the list header is the figure this card reports (scoped to the same catalog / site context).
- Open any product and check the Online setting on its General tab. SFCC lets you set online status, and optionally online-from / online-to dates for scheduled visibility, which is how seasonal products go dark automatically.
- Catalog context matters: the online flag is evaluated per site/catalog, so confirm you are filtering in the same catalog scope this card uses before comparing counts.
| Reason | Direction of divergence |
|---|---|
| Scheduled visibility windows. SFCC can flip online via online-from / online-to dates. At the moment a window opens or closes, BM’s live evaluation and the card can briefly disagree. | ±small set at the boundary |
| Per-site online state. A product offline on one site and online on another is counted differently depending on catalog scope. Compare like-for-like site context. | Either, depends on site filter |
| Catalog assignment vs online flag. A product can be unassigned from a catalog entirely, which is distinct from online=false. BM filters can blur the two. | Card may differ from an assignment-based filter |
| Master vs variant rollup. A master can be online while some variants are offline (or vice versa). How the count rolls up affects the comparison. | Either |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Is a high offline count bad? Not by itself. A lot of offline products is normal for a mature catalog: seasonal lines pulled down, drafts in progress, and discontinued products kept for history. What matters is whether any of them should be online and are not. Read the number against your own baseline and investigate sudden jumps. What is the difference between offline and out of stock? Offline means the storefront online flag is false, the product is hidden from shoppers regardless of stock. Out of stock means the product may still be visible but has no available inventory. They are separate states with separate fixes: flip a flag versus replenish stock. This card covers only the offline case. A product I expected to be live is in this count. Why? The most common reasons are: its online flag was never flipped after setup, a scheduled online-from date has not arrived yet, a catalog feed toggled it off, or it was unassigned from the storefront catalog. Open it in Business Manager and check the Online setting and any online-from / online-to dates first. Can a product be offline on one site but online on another? Yes. SFCC evaluates the online flag in a catalog / site context, so a multi-site realm can have a product live on the US site and offline on the UK site. When reconciling, make sure you are comparing the same site scope this card is counting. Does taking a product offline delete it or its order history? No. Offline only hides the product from the storefront. The catalog record, its SKUs, and all historical orders referencing it remain intact. That is exactly why merchants keep discontinued products offline rather than deleting them. Why did this number spike after a catalog import? Bulk imports and PIM syncs frequently set online flags as part of the payload. A misconfigured feed can switch a whole category offline in one run. A sudden jump in this card right after an import is the classic signature, verify against the last job and roll back the flags if it was unintended. Is this real-time? Yes. It reflects the current catalog online state, recomputed as flags change. There is no period selector, the time window isRT.