Why Does Shopify Inbox AI Hide Out-of-Stock and Backorder Products?
Shopify’s help center says Inbox agent recommendations are based only on your store catalog, and the pages we checked don’t say how stock or backorder status affects them, or offer a setting for it. Merchants report that zero-stock and backorder products are left out. If you sell on backorder or pre-order, AeroChat lets you decide in your own words how those products are offered: with the ship time, as an alternative, or not at all.
Shopify Inbox behavior from Shopify’s help center: Inbox agent persona and Assigning your Inbox agent to conversations, checked 11 November 2026.
Why merchants ask
A merchant on the Shopify Community reported that the Inbox agent excludes products with zero stock or on backorder from its recommendations, with no way for the merchant to change it. For stores that sell made-to-order items, take pre-orders or keep selling while a restock is on the way, those are often the products shoppers ask about. Leaving them out can send a shopper to another store for something you would happily have sold them with a later ship date.
What Shopify Inbox does today
Per Shopify’s help center, checked 11 November 2026:
- The Inbox agent answers product questions about details, availability and pricing, and recommends products based on what the customer is looking for.
- Product recommendations are based only on your store catalog.
- The persona can’t force behavior, such as requiring a product recommendation in every reply, and conflicting instructions might not be followed.
- The help center pages we checked don’t say how out-of-stock or backorder products are treated in recommendations, and don’t describe a setting to change it. We could not confirm the behavior merchants report from Shopify’s own pages.
The usual fixes and their limits
- Allow overselling on the product. In Shopify you can keep selling a product when it is out of stock. Whether the Inbox agent then recommends it isn’t described in the help center, so test it on your store.
- Add the information to your store sources. Shopify suggests keeping product facts in your products, pages or Knowledge Base. Writing “available on backorder, ships in 3 weeks” on the product page gives the agent the fact to use if it does mention the item.
- A pre-order or back-in-stock app. These collect pre-orders or restock alerts on the product page. They don’t change what the chat agent recommends.
How to handle it in chat with AeroChat
AeroChat syncs your Shopify products and variants with prices and stock. You choose in the dashboard whether it shows stock levels, and in your recipe you say exactly what to do when an item is out of stock: offer it on backorder with the ship time, offer the nearest in-stock alternative first, or both. If the shopper wants something that’s sold out with no restock date, AeroChat can take their email so your team can tell them when it’s back.
Customer: Do you have the oak bookshelf in the tall size? (example)
AeroChat: The tall oak bookshelf is on backorder. You can order it now and it ships in about 4 weeks (example). If you need one sooner, the tall walnut version is in stock and ships in 2 days. Which would you prefer?
Customer: I’ll wait for the oak.
AeroChat: Great. Here’s the oak bookshelf page: [link]. You can place your backorder there.
In AeroChat: the reply uses stock from your synced Shopify catalog and your rule for backorder items.
Copy this into AeroChat
When a shopper asks for a product that is out of stock, follow these steps.
- If the product page or our knowledge base says it is available on backorder, offer it and say it ships in about 4 weeks (example).
- Also offer the closest in-stock alternative, with one line on how it differs.
- If the product cannot be ordered, say so, offer the closest in-stock alternative, and ask if they’d like to leave their email so our team can tell them when it’s back.
Never say an item will arrive sooner than its ship time. Reply in the customer’s language.
Change the ship time to match your supplier lead times before you paste it.
What to connect
- Your Shopify store. Built in. Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store and connect your store, so products, variants, prices and stock sync automatically.
- Your ship times for backorder and pre-order items. Put them on the product page or in AeroChat’s knowledge.
- Your channels. Add WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, so the same rule applies when shoppers ask there.
Questions
Can I make the Shopify Inbox agent recommend backorder products?
Shopify’s help center, checked 11 November 2026, doesn’t describe a setting for it. It says recommendations are based on your store catalog and that the persona can’t force behavior.
Does AeroChat show stock levels to shoppers?
Only if you turn it on. You can show stock levels, or keep them hidden and only say whether an item is available.
Can AeroChat take pre-orders in chat?
It can send the shopper to the product page to pre-order, or send an Airwallex payment link for a deposit if you take pre-orders in chat. See payment links for custom orders.
Will it notify customers when a product is back?
AeroChat takes the shopper’s email in the chat for your team or your back-in-stock tool to follow up. It does not send the restock message by itself.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
Sell what you can ship, even when it’s not on the shelf
Install AeroChat, paste the out-of-stock recipe, and ask your own store chat for a product on backorder.
7-day free trial.