- Short answer
- Unavailable stock is on hand but can't be sold; stores using these states hold it as Damaged, Quality control, Safety stock or Other.
- Not every store uses them
- "If your store uses unavailable inventory states" — Shopify's inventory help pages, read September 21, 2026, name no trigger.
- No inline edit fields?
- Unavailable values that aren't editable inline can point to a guided adjustment flow — Shopify calls that expected behavior.
- At the POS counter
- POS shows Unavailable quantities; its help page describes counting On hand, not moving units between states.
What are Shopify's unavailable inventory states?
Unavailable is one of five inventory states Shopify tracks at a location, alongside On hand, Available, Committed and Incoming.
Unavailable inventory refers to the number of units set aside by apps or held for other reasons, such as damaged, quality control, or safety stock. Unavailable inventory is stocked at your location but isn't available to sell.
Shopify names four unavailable states:
- Damaged;
- Quality control — needs a quality check before it can be sold;
- Safety stock — held in reserve;
- Other — unavailable for a reason you've determined.
How do unavailable states change what you can sell?
On hand totals your Committed, Unavailable and Available units, but only Available is inventory you can sell.
In Shopify's example, Jo's Jams stocks 55 jars: 35 set aside as safety stock plus one unlabeled jar in quality control make 36 Unavailable, leaving 19 Available. Relabel the jar, make it Available, and the count is 20.
How do you move stock into or out of an unavailable state?
Shopify's help attaches a condition — "if your store uses unavailable inventory states" — to adding new stock directly to one, moving stock between unavailable and available, and moving it between unavailable states.
Moving a unit out of Safety stock back to Available is one such adjustment. In Shopify's example, making 2 Safety stock mustards sellable logs "Moved from Safety stock": -2 under Unavailable, +2 under Available.
No Shopify page we read on September 21, 2026 — its inventory help pages and retail inventory page — names what decides whether a store uses these states.
If unavailable values such as Safety stock aren't editable inline, your store might use a guided adjustment flow; Shopify says missing inline fields can be expected behavior there.
At the counter, Shopify POS displays the Unavailable quantity, but its help page has staff count On hand for a stock count rather than shift units out of a state.
This article was written entirely by AI under human editorial direction. The editor sets the topic and structure, runs multi-stage validation on facts, links, and interactive elements, and verifies the output is useful from a business perspective. All claims are checked against official Shopify sources. Details may change — always confirm critical data at shopify.com.
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