Cleaning up your catalog can feel like a massive undertaking, but it doesn't have to be. Let's break it into small, feasible steps and provide the tools to get your catalog back on track.
Overall, we recommend deleting products you're no longer selling and not planning to sell in the future. This helps clean up your POS so both systems can run more efficiently.
The three-step process:
Before you delete anything…
Important things to know about deleting:
It's permanent: Deleting a product in Thrive will remove it from your sales channels and integrations. This is an irreversible process that deletes the product across all locations.
History is preserved: The inventory and sales histories will be preserved in reports, even once a product is deleted. In other words, deleting an item will not affect your history (except for products with Inventory Tracking disabled)
You can read more about deleting products here.
PRO-TIP:
The tools below help identify specific product trends that may indicate that you want to delete the product, but each business is different, so please be sure to use your discretion.
1) Identifying products to delete
The first step is to identify the products you'd like to delete. This process will vary depending on your business, but we'll outline our best tools for the job below.
Remember that if you have multiple locations, you'll want to ensure you're not deleting a product from all locations just because it isn't selling at one location.
Find products that haven't sold lately:
Use the Dead Inventory Report to see all the products that haven't sold in a certain number of days. Whether you're looking to pinpoint products that haven't sold in 30, 60, 90, or any number of days, this report is what you need.
You can see for yourself here, or you can learn more.
Bonus tool: If you're ensuring accurate inventory quantities by performing Stocktakes, the Due for Stocktakes Report can help you find products that haven't been counted in a certain number of days. This may help pinpoint products that may have gone overlooked.
Find Products with Null (Blank), Zero, or Negative Quantities
Different quantity issues point to different problems—here's how to find each type.
Finding Null, Zero, or Negative Quantities
Null (or blank) quantities indicate a product was created, but a quantity was never added.
From the Variants View:
Step 1: Sort by quantity You can sort the quantity field to bring null quantities to the top.
Step 2: Use the Total Quantity filter There's also a Total Quantity filter available to easily identify items with null, negative, or zero quantity.
What the filter shows:
"No Total Quantity" - For null quantities
Set a range - To find specific quantity thresholds
Step 3: Bulk delete Select the items you'd like to delete (or Select All if filtered) and use the trash icon to bulk delete! Easy!
Keep reading to find other options for identifying these products in your catalog.
Finding zero quantities with Bulk Uploads.
Open an Edit Variants bulk upload spreadsheet.
When generating the spreadsheet, ensure all locations are toggled on and the "Out of Stock" toggle. This will ensure you only see products "out of stock" across all your locations when the spreadsheet generates.
Find negative quantities with the Inventory Report:
You should not have products with negative quantities. If you have any, we recommend researching why and then updating the count in Thrive.
To pinpoint any negative quantities, run an Inventory Report for "Now."
Then, sort the "In Stock" column in ascending order (either on the report itself or by downloading a CSV). Your "highest" negative quantity will be at the top of the list.
2) Marking Products for Deletion (optional)
You can delete products individually, but if you want to do this in bulk, we recommend marking them for deletion.
What Does "Marking for Deletion" Mean?
By "marking for deletion," we mean grouping all of the products you want to delete and then using our bulk delete tool to eliminate those products.
How to Mark Products
To do that, we recommend creating a new vendor or category with a clear title that indicates that the products assigned to it are safe for deletion. Generally, we recommend "TO BE DELETED" in all caps to ensure someone doesn't use it for a product you'd like to keep.
Option 1: Bulk assign via spreadsheet Assign products to the new Category or Vendor in bulk via an Edit Variants bulk upload spreadsheet.
Option 2: Bulk assign from Category or Vendor pages Bulk assign the products from the Category or Vendor pages in Thrive.
Option 3: Individual assignment And, of course, you can always assign products/variants individually to the new Category or Vendor from their product page.
3) Deleting unwanted products
If you've used the method of "marking" your products for deletion by assigning them to a designated Category or Vendor, the bulk delete tool is your go-to option. Follow these steps to clear out those unwanted products:
Navigate to the Variants View of the Catalog.
Use filters to narrow down which products you want to delete. Select your newly created Category or Vendor.
Select All items.
Select the trash can icon that appears to delete all selected items.
Double-check your selection before deleting!
You can also delete products from their Product Details Page
What if I delete a product on accident?
Unfortunately, there is not a tool to bring back accidentally deleted products. So, we recommend checking and double-checking your list before deleting any products.
If You Need to Recreate a Deleted Product
The product will need to be recreated manually. For product information (SKU, barcode, price, cost, etc.), we recommend:
Generate an Inventory Report right before deleting products (if possible)
Use that information to recreate the product with accurate details
Pro tip: Keep a backup Inventory Report as CSV before major deletions. It's your safety net!
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