The low stock counter
“Only 3 left” on a size that is running out - showing your real inventory, never an invented number.
Last updated July 28, 2026
Back in Stock catches the shopper who arrived too late. The low stock counter catches the one who is about to be: a quiet line under the price saying how many of the selected size are left, once that number gets small.
It shows the truth
The number is your actual inventory. There is no setting anywhere that would let it read “only 3 left” over a stock of three hundred, and there will not be one. Fake scarcity is why shoppers have learned to scroll past these counters, and in the EU and the UK it is a consumer-protection problem on top of being a lie - the counter is only worth having if it is believed.
When it stays hidden
- Sizes that don't track inventory - there is no count to show, and zero would be wrong rather than merely unhelpful.
- Sizes you allow to oversell - a variant that keeps selling past zero is not scarce, whatever the number says.
- Sold out - that is the Back in Stock button's job, and showing “only 0 left” instead would be worse than useless.
- Anything above your threshold. Most product pages will never show it, which is what makes it mean something when they do.
Choosing a threshold
Five is the default and a sensible one. It is capped at twenty, because above that the line stops being scarcity and starts being an inventory report - and a counter nobody believes costs you more than no counter at all. Setting it to zero turns it off without removing the block.