Managing stock & inventory
How to track stock levels, set low-stock alerts, manage backorders, and keep your WooCommerce inventory accurate.
WooCommerce can track exactly how many units you have in stock, warn you when you are running low, and automatically mark items as unavailable when they sell out. This guide shows you how to use those features.
Quick summary
You can turn on stock management for each product individually, or for your whole store. Once enabled, WooCommerce tracks quantities, shows "Out of stock" when items sell out, and can send you low-stock email alerts. You can also allow backorders if you want customers to keep purchasing even when stock is zero.
What you'll need
Beginner 5–10 minutes- A WooCommerce product already created
- Your current stock quantity for each product
Enabling inventory tracking store-wide
Before managing stock on individual products, make sure stock management is turned on in your store settings.
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products.
Click the Inventory tab within the Products settings page.
Check "Enable stock management." This turns on inventory tracking across your whole store.
Set low stock and out-of-stock thresholds. The default low-stock threshold is 2 units. Change this to whatever makes sense for your business — for example, if you re-order when you have 10 left, set the threshold to 10.
Enable notifications (optional). Check "Notify me when a product is low in stock" and "Notify me when a product is out of stock" to receive email alerts. These go to the admin email address for your store.
Click Save changes.
Enabling stock tracking on an individual product
Even with store-wide tracking on, you opt each product in to tracking individually.
Open the product for editing (Products → All Products → click the product).
Go to the Inventory tab inside the Product data panel.
Check "Track stock quantity for this product."
Enter the current stock quantity in the Quantity field.
Choose the out-of-stock behavior. Under "Allow backorders," choose:
- Do not allow — stops purchases when stock hits zero
- Allow, but notify customer — lets customers buy and shows a "Available on backorder" notice
- Allow — lets customers buy with no special notice
Click Update to save.
Updating stock quantities
You will need to update quantities when new stock arrives, or when you make adjustments.
Open the product, go to the Inventory tab in Product data, and change the Quantity field. Click Update to save.
Go to Products → All Products. Hover over a product and click Quick Edit. You can change the stock quantity right in the list view without opening each product individually. Click Update when done.
Managing stock for variable products
For variable products (ones with sizes or colors), you can track stock at the variation level.
In the Variations tab of Product data, expand each variation and check Manage stock? for that variation. Enter the quantity for each variation separately. This is useful when, for example, you have 5 blue shirts in size M but only 2 in size L.
Don't double-track
If you manage stock at the variation level, do not also enable stock management at the product (parent) level. Managing both at once can cause confusion. Pick one: parent-level or variation-level.
Stock status vs stock quantity
There are two ways to control availability:
- Stock quantity tracking — WooCommerce counts units and handles availability automatically
- Stock status — you manually set the product to "In stock," "Out of stock," or "On backorder"
If you do not need precise quantity tracking (for example, you sell services), you can just set the status manually rather than tracking a number. Find this in the Inventory tab — when stock quantity tracking is off, a Stock Status dropdown appears.
Common questions
Related guides
- Products in WooCommerce explained
- How to add a simple product
- How to add a variable product
- Setting prices & sale prices
- Understanding orders
Need a hand?
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