How to cancel WooCommerce subscription based on low stock?

Selling subscriptions for physical products has some disadvantages like shipping or managing returns. But there is one that’s really huge - product shortages. In this article, you will learn how to block renewal of out of stock products in WooCommerce. And auto cancel a WooCommerce subscription based on low stock and improve stock management with email notifications.

Key points

• Block renewal of out of stock products in WooCommerce for better user experience.
• Lower user dissatisfaction and returns when products get out of stock.
• React on product shortages in time.
• Do not anger users with payments for non-available products.
• Hide out of stock products and subscriptions for them in WooCommerce.

Table of contents

• Cancel a subscription in WooCommerce automatically based on stock
• Manage stock for subscriptions
• Hide out of stock products in WooCommerce

Cancel a subscription in WooCommerce automatically based on stock

The subscription renewal of out of stock products can bring you not only more phone calls but also unpleasant consequences.

If you know you run out of products, you need to cancel user subscriptions.

For example, in Flexible Subscriptions, that’s possible when editing a subscription.

However, this approach takes time. What’s even more important, it’s quite difficult to track all product stock levels or manually cancel subscriptions.

In short, it’s possible, but you should NOT take that approach!

You need something easier, and that works AUTOMATICALLY.

Manage stock for subscriptions

The Flexible Subscriptions uses the product inventory capabilities.

You may also set stock for variable subscriptions:

However, a subscription means recurring payments. So, if you offer physical products inside, you must remember about stock.

Why?

Because the inventory gets lower not only every time someone buys the subscription, but also when it’s renewed.

WP Desk has built a new add-on for Flexible Subscriptions to help store owners. How?

Stock Management takes care of subscription automation due to low product stock.

It’s possible to auto cancel subscriptions based on the defined stock.

You may also turn on email notifications to admin and users to:

• inform about product shortages and subscription suspension
• prevent recurring payments for out of stock products
• react in time on low stock
• improve stock and subscription management

As you can see, the Stock Management extension for Flexible Subscriptions comes with clear settings.

It's also possible to customize the two new email templates for subscriptions:

Hide out of stock products in WooCommerce

WooCommerce gives an easy way to hide non-available products. By default, products that ran out of stock are visible in the store.

But you can hide such products from the catalog by checking one option in WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Inventory.

If the product’s inventory is set to “out of stock”

and products get below the “out of stock level”, the product will disappear from the shop catalog.

Hide subscriptions

The Flexible Subscriptions plugin uses the product inventory too, so the same mechanism will work according to the stock level. Both for simple and variable subscriptions (general, or with exact quantity), for example:

When the subscription stock level falls to “out of stock”, the subscription will not be available in the store.

That’s the way to prevent buying products and subscriptions.

Summary

Effective management of product stock in WooCommerce is a must, especially for subscriptions and recurring payments. Flexible Subscriptions comes with the Stock Management add-on to take care of the subscription process and auto cancellation based on stock level.

Flexible Subscriptions is a free plugin for subscription-based sales in WooCommerce. You may also check out and test the Stock Management add-on.