How to Redirect Out-of-Stock WooCommerce Products to Amazon

Every e-commerce store owner knows the sinking feeling of seeing a popular product hit “0” inventory. It’s a bittersweet moment. On one hand, you made sales; on the other, you are now bleeding revenue every single hour that the product remains unavailable.

But the financial loss is only half the story. The hidden damage to your website’s SEO health and user experience (UX) is often far worse than the missed sales.

Most WooCommerce store owners default to one of two bad options: they either display a frustrating “Sold Out” badge, or they hide the product entirely. Both of these are mistakes that cost you money.

There is a third option: The Affiliate Pivot.

In this guide, we are going to explore why standard out-of-stock handling kills your business, and how to use the Stock Saver Pro plugin to automatically redirect that traffic to Amazon (or any partner site) to keep your revenue flowing and your SEO rankings intact.

The “Hidden Cost” of Out-of-Stock Inventory

Before we fix the problem, we need to understand exactly how much it is costing you. It is not just about the $50 sale you didn’t make today. It is about the lifetime value of the customer and the authority of your domain.

1. The SEO Nightmare (The “Hide Product” Trap)

WooCommerce includes a native setting called “Hide out of stock items from the catalog.” It is tempting to check this box. After all, why show customers something they can’t buy?

Here is why you should never check that box:

The 404 Problem: If you hide a product, the URL often becomes inaccessible or removed from your sitemap. If Google has indexed that page, or if other blogs have linked to it, those links now lead to a dead end. Google hates dead ends.
Loss of Keyword Rankings: You worked hard to rank for “organic bamboo toothbrush.” If you hide the page for two weeks while waiting for a shipment, Google notices the page is gone. By the time you restock, you may have dropped from page 1 to page 10.
Wasted Ad Spend: If you are running Google Shopping ads or Facebook retargeting, hiding the product can cause campaign errors or, worse, you might pay for clicks that land on error pages.

2. The User Experience (UX) Bounce

Imagine a customer searching for a specific item. They find your store, click the link, and see a giant red “OUT OF STOCK” button. What do they do?

They don’t wait. They don’t sign up for your newsletter. They hit the “Back” button immediately. This “Bounce Rate” signals to Google that your website is not a good result for that search query, further damaging your SEO.

The Solution: The Amazon “Safety Valve”

The smartest way to handle inventory gaps is to act as a conduit, not a dead end. If you cannot fulfill the order, you should send the customer to someone who can—and get paid for the referral.

This is where Stock Saver Pro comes in. It allows you to keep your product page live, keep your SEO juice flowing, but swap the “Add to Cart” functionality for an affiliate redirect.

The Math Behind the Strategy

Let’s say you sell a coffee maker for $100. When it is in stock, you might make $40 in profit.

When it is out of stock, you normally make $0.

By redirecting to Amazon with an Associate Tag, you might earn a 4% commission on that $100 item. That is $4.00. While $4 is less than $40, $4 is infinitely better than $0.

Furthermore, Amazon’s cookie lasts for 24 hours. If that customer clicks your link to buy the coffee maker but ends up buying a $2,000 TV, you get a commission on the TV, too. We have seen store owners actually increase revenue during stock outages because of high-ticket cart add-ons on Amazon.

Step-by-Step: How to Automate Redirects with Stock Saver Pro

Manual redirection is messy. You don’t want to be editing HTML code every time a shipment arrives. Stock Saver Pro automates this based on your actual WooCommerce inventory levels.

Here is how to set up the “Zero-Loss” system.

Step 1: Installation and Activation

First, you need to get the plugin installed. It works alongside WooCommerce to monitor your stock status.

Download the stock-saver-pro.zip file from your account.
Navigate to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin in WordPress.
Install and Activate.
Go to the new Stock Saver menu in your dashboard and enter your license key[cite: 5]. This unlocks the API for automatic updates and features.

Step 2: Configure Your Global Amazon Tag

You do not want to paste your affiliate ID into every single product manually. That would take forever. Stock Saver Pro handles this globally.

Go to Stock Saver > Settings.
Look for the field labeled “Your Amazon Associate Tag”[cite: 5].
Enter your tag (e.g., localsite-20).
Click Save.

Now, every time the plugin generates a link, it will automatically append ?tag=localsite-20 to the URL, ensuring you get credit for the sale.

Step 3: Setting Up a Product (The ASIN Method)

This is where the magic happens. You don’t need to go find specific affiliate links for every product. You just need the ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number).

Edit any WooCommerce product.
Scroll down to the Product Data box.
Click on the new Stock Saver Pro tab on the left.
Paste the 10-character code into the Amazon ASIN field (e.g., B08J5F3G18)[cite: 5].

What happens next?
As long as your product is “In Stock,” nothing changes. Your standard “Add to Cart” button appears, and you capture the full sale.

However, the moment WooCommerce detects the inventory is 0, the plugin wakes up. It dynamically replaces your cart button with a button labeled “Buy on Amazon” (or whatever text you choose). When clicked, it sends the user to:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08J5F3G18?tag=localsite-20

Step 4: The Manual Override (For Non-Amazon Items)

What if you sell a product that isn’t on Amazon? Maybe you want to redirect traffic to a partner distributor, an eBay listing, or a different website entirely.

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Stock Saver Pro includes a field called “Manual Override URL”[cite: 5].

If you enter a URL here (e.g., https://partner-site.com/product-xyz), the plugin will ignore the Amazon ASIN and send the traffic to this custom link instead. This gives you 100% control over where your traffic goes.

The Power of Data: Who is Clicking?

One of the biggest blind spots in e-commerce is “Lost Demand.” Usually, when you are out of stock, you have no idea how many people would have bought the item.

Stock Saver Pro solves this with built-in Click Analytics.

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On your dashboard, you will see a visual chart titled “Clicks (Last 7 Days)”[cite: 5]. This tracks every time a customer attempts to buy an out-of-stock item.

Why is this data critical?

Restock Priority: If Product A has 50 clicks and Product B has 2 clicks, you know exactly which one to reorder first.
Affiliate auditing: You can compare the clicks in your dashboard to your Amazon Associates report to ensure you are getting paid for the traffic you send.
Bot Detection: The analytics table logs the IP Address of every click[cite: 5], helping you spot if bots are crawling your out-of-stock pages.

Advanced Strategy: Customizing the Call to Action

The default button text is “Buy on Amazon,” but that might not fit your brand voice. [cite_start]Using the “Button Text” field in the product settings[cite: 5], you can use psychology to increase click-through rates (CTR).

Try these variations:

“Check Availability on Amazon” (Implies scarcity, encourages clicks)
“Order via Prime” (Leverages Amazon’s trust and speed)
“See Price on Partner Site” (Curiosity gap)

The goal is to make the transition feel helpful, not jarring. You are providing a service by helping them find the product, even if you can’t sell it to them yourself.

Conclusion: Turn “Sold Out” into “Sold Elsewhere”

Inventory management is difficult. Supply chain issues happen. But a stockout shouldn’t mean a total loss of revenue.

By using Stock Saver Pro, you protect your SEO rankings by keeping pages live, you improve user experience by offering a buying alternative, and you open a new stream of passive affiliate income.

Stop hiding your products. Start monetizing your traffic.

Ready to save your sales?

Get the complete out-of-stock solution with ASIN support, analytics, and automatic redirects.

Download Stock Saver Pro