How Lantern handles stock availability depends on whether or not your results have been set up by connecting products without variants, products with variants or specific variants only.
We will look at what happens in each of the 3 scenarios, as well as situations where no products appear due to exclusion rules or budget questions:
Products without variants
Lantern handles stock availability automatically for products without variants.
In stock: The product will be displayed and can be added to the cart from the results page
Out of stock: the product won’t be displayed in the results unless you enable Show sold out products.
Inventory not tracked, or selling allowed when out of stock: products that don’t track inventory, or that allow selling when out of stock, are always shown.
Unlisted: products with Shopify’s Unlisted status are hidden unless you tick Show unlisted products under Results Page → Product Recommendations.
Products with variants
Lantern does NOT automatically handle stock availability.
A variant selector appears. If at least one variant is in stock, the shopper can select ANY option and add it to cart.
Important: For products with variants, Lantern does not validate stock per option on the Results page due to Shopify API limits. If at least one variant is in stock, the card appears and shoppers can pick any option; Shopify checkout enforces the final stock check and will block out-of-stock variants.
If ALL variants are out of stock, the product won’t appear and cannot be added to cart, unless you enable Show sold out products.
Specific variants of products connected directly
Lantern handles stock availability automatically for specific variants of products.
In stock: Only the specific variants you matched are offered (no variant selector) and can be added to cart.
Out of stock: The product won’t appear and cannot be added to cart unless you enable Show sold out products.
Control visibility: Go to Results Page → Product Recommendations and toggle Show sold out products on to display sold‑out items, or off to hide them.
Troubleshooting 'No Matching Products Found'
If a shopper's answers don't match any products, Lantern shows the fallback recommendations you've chosen under Products → When nothing matches → Default products.
These appear in the order you set, on the usual Results Page with its heading and text, and without match scores. The No results message and its button only appear when the Default products list is empty. Learn how to choose Default products in Product Matching.
If you expected matched products to appear instead of Default products, check the following.
Exclusions — Check whether your exclusion rules remove the expected products. Match Score: Thresholds, Product Sorting and Exclusions
Product status — Check that the products aren’t draft or archived. Unlisted products are hidden unless Show unlisted products is enabled.
Stock availability — If the expected products are sold out, check the Show Sold Out Products setting.
Budget questions — If the quiz has a budget question, check that the expected products fall within a selected price range. A quiz that contains only a budget question won't match any products, so shoppers see your Default products instead, or the No results message if that list is empty. Learn how to set up budget questions in Product Matching.