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I've been asked to design something to indicate when an item is "out of stock" and "in stock again" and I really don't want to use "cross" and "tick"...

Do you guys have any ideas?

A quick note:

I'm working on an application that gathers prices of products on daily basis and the icons are used in something like a "news feed" for products. Until now, we only showed products price change (increase, decrease, no change) and whether product was delisted or listed in selected period of time, if that makes sense? We now have data about products' availability in store and that's why I need new icons.

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Icon questions are outside of the guidelines for this site, so I have modified your question to be more generic. – JohnGB Feb 27 at 12:06
Thanks for the correction! – Adaz Feb 27 at 12:18

closed as off topic by Benny Skogberg, JohnGB, kontur, JonW♦ Feb 27 at 13:05

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3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

There isn't any standard icon for this, so you will have to use text.

I would not use "Out of stock" as the text, as it makes it look like you just haven't stocked it. Rather use "Sold out", which gives an indication that high demand is the reason that it is not available now.

I would chose to only show one state and leave the other as the default. Don't show any text when an item is in stock, and show "Sold out" when you are out of stock.

I would suggest a ribbon / sash or a stamp.

enter image description hereenter image description here

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That makes perfect sense for a sales site and I agree with your points but I'm working on an application that gathers prices of products on daily basis and the icons are used in something like a "news feed" for products. Until now, we only showed products price change (increase, decrease, no change) and whether product was delisted or listed in selected period of time, if that makes sense? We now have data about products' availability in store and that's why I need new icons. Thanks for your suggestion though! – Adaz Feb 27 at 12:16
@Adaz You then need to add that information to your question. I would still use a banners or stamps though. – JohnGB Feb 27 at 12:26
up vote 0 down vote

How about a simplistically coloured or mono-chromatic "open box" to indicate in stock and a grey-scale version of the box to indicate out-of-stock?

open box

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I'm not really convinced with the box and I can't think of a simple design that would fit in 16x16 but thanks! – Adaz Feb 27 at 12:36
up vote 0 down vote

How about showing red when out of stock and green (transitioning animation like Windows communicator) when it comes back to stock.

Having said that, judging from your requirement you could also use a notification widget (just like this site), which will notify you once the out-of-stock has happened and once stock-replenishment has happened.

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I agree with the colours but I'm not quite sure what you mean? – Adaz Feb 27 at 12:37
@Adaz which one? 'Transitioning animation' or 'Notification widget'? – ripu1581 Feb 27 at 12:55

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