WooCommerce: Rename “Read more” To “Out of stock” @ Shop

There is an unfortunate (IMO) add to cart button naming on the WooCommerce shop page / category pages / product loops. When an item is out of stock, the “Add to cart” (or “Select options” for a variable product type) button label will turn into “Read more”.

To be honest, that doesn’t really say much to the end customer. It’s quite confusing and doesn’t make much sense.

Today, we’ll see how to change that “Read more” label into something more comprehensible: “Out of stock”. A super easy trick. Enjoy!

PHP Snippet: Rename “Read more” Button Label @ WooCommerce Shop / Category / Loop Pages

Note: take a look at the “Test” product in the screenshot above. That still shows “Read more”, so why’s that? Well, in that case the product is not out of stock, actually – it’s just not purchasable (I entered no regular price for it).

The snippet below will only act on the out of stock products. In case you wish to also include non purchasable items, you also need to run the ! $product->is_purchasable() check inside the function.

/**
 * @snippet       Read more > Out of stock @ WooCommerce Shop
 * @how-to        Get CustomizeWoo.com FREE
 * @author        Rodolfo Melogli
 * @testedwith    WooCommerce 5
 * @community     https://businessbloomer.com/club/
 */

add_filter( 'woocommerce_product_add_to_cart_text', 'bbloomer_archive_custom_cart_button_text' );
 
function bbloomer_archive_custom_cart_button_text( $text ) {
   global $product;       
   if ( $product && ! $product->is_in_stock() ) {           
      return 'Out of stock';
   } 
   return $text;
}

Where to add custom code?

You should place custom PHP in functions.php and custom CSS in style.css of your child theme: where to place WooCommerce customization?

This code still works, unless you report otherwise. To exclude conflicts, temporarily switch to the Storefront theme, disable all plugins except WooCommerce, and test the snippet again: WooCommerce troubleshooting 101

Related content

• WooCommerce: Disable Variable Product Price Range $$$-$$$
  You may want to disable the WooCommerce variable product price range which usually looks like $100-$999 when variations have different prices (min $100 and max $999 in this case). With this snippet you will be able to hide the highest price, and add a “From: ” prefix in front of the minimum price. At the […]
• WooCommerce: Hide Price & Add to Cart for Logged Out Users
  You may want to force users to login in order to see prices and add products to cart. That means you must hide add to cart buttons and prices on the Shop and Single Product pages when a user is logged out. All you need is pasting the following code in your functions.php (please note: […]
• WooCommerce Visual Hook Guide: Archive / Shop / Cat Pages
  I’ve created a visual HTML hook guide for the WooCommerce Archive Page (which is the same page for the Shop, Category, Tag pages). This visual guide belongs to my “Visual Hook Guide Series“, that I’ve put together so that you can find WooCommerce hooks quickly and easily by seeing their actual locations (and you can […]
• WooCommerce: Hide Prices on the Shop & Category Pages
  Interesting WooCommerce customization here. A client of mine asked me to hide/remove prices from the shop page and category pages as she wanted to drive more customers to the single product pages (i.e. increasing the click-through rate). As usual, a simple PHP snippet does the trick. I never recommend to use CSS to “hide” prices, […]
• WooCommerce: How to Remove the “Default Sorting” Dropdown
  If the WooCommerce product sorting functionality (“Default Sorting” dropdown) is a waste of space or you don’t need that select box at all, you may want to remove it. No matter if you prefer custom code or a simple plugin – hiding the product sorting dropdown is a piece of cake. Enjoy!

Rodolfo Melogli

Business Bloomer Founder

Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza. Follow @rmelogli