Hi there,

Thank you for detailing this so thoroughly. You are absolutely not alone in this—many retailers using Odoo face this exact friction point. You hit the nail on the head regarding the disconnect between Odoo’s internal ordering logic ("Can we sell it?") and Google’s strict schema requirements ("Is it physically on the shelf?").

To add to the urgency of your feature request: this isn't just a bad customer experience issue; it's a Google Merchant Center (GMC) compliance risk. GMC is notoriously strict about availability mismatches. If their bots or manual reviewers notice that items submitted as in_stock in the XML feed actually behave as backorders on the site (or have long shipping delays), they will issue preemptive item disapprovals or even suspend the Merchant account for misleading availability.

While we wait and advocate for Odoo to implement backorder and preorder natively into the core logic, here are two actionable ways you can fix this in Odoo Online right now without needing a third-party app:

1. Utilize the "Out-of-Stock Message" Field

While ribbons are great for visual cues, you can directly address the frontend text issue using standard Odoo features.

• When you check "Continue Selling" (formerly "Sell when out-of-Stock"), Odoo surfaces an "Out-of-Stock Message" field on the eCommerce tab of the product template.

• Instead of leaving the default behavior, explicitly write: "Available for Backorder - Ships in [X] Days." This overrides the generic "Available" assumption and immediately sets the right expectation for retail and Click & Collect customers before they add it to their cart.

2. Modify the XML Feed & Schema via QWeb Views (Developer Mode)

Since you are on Odoo Online, you cannot install custom Python modules, but you can edit QWeb views to fix your Google Merchant XML feed and page schema.

If you turn on Developer Mode, you can navigate to Settings > Technical > User Interface > Views. You can search for the Google Merchant feed template and the website product schema template. You can wrap the availability output in a simple conditional t-if statement based on free_qty.

Here is the logic concept you can apply to the QWeb view:

XML

<!-- Check if physically in stock -->
<t t-if="product.sudo().free_qty &gt; 0">
    <g:availability>in_stock</g:availability>
</t>
<!-- Check if out of stock but allowed to backorder -->
<t t-elif="product.allow_out_of_stock_order">
    <g:availability>backorder</g:availability>
</t>
<!-- Otherwise, it's out of stock -->
<t t-else="">
    <g:availability>out_of_stock</g:availability>
</t>

Note: If you use Odoo Studio, you could even add a custom x_release_date field to your product templates and add another t-elif to output preorder if datetime.date.today() < product.x_release_date!

Your proposed solution for a future Odoo release is perfectly aligned with modern eCommerce standards. I highly recommend submitting this as a feature request on the official Odoo GitHub repository if you haven't already. If you post the GitHub link here, I (and likely many others) will gladly upvote it!

This is a well-identified limitation in Odoo 19's eCommerce stock availability display, and you have described it very clearly. You are correct that the current behavior is confusing for customers.

Current behavior explanation: When Sell when out of Stock is enabled, Odoo treats the product as orderable regardless of stock, and the frontend label shows Available even when the physical stock is zero. This is technically correct from Odoo's business logic perspective (the product CAN be ordered), but it is misleading from a customer-facing standpoint and misaligns with Google Merchant Center's availability taxonomy.

What you can do today without custom code:

1. For products where you want to clearly signal to customers that the item is not physically in stock but can still be ordered (backorder), you can use the product description or a custom ribbon/badge. In eCommerce > Products, you can add a ribbon (like Pre-order or Available to Order) via Website > eCommerce > Products > Ribbons. This gives customers a visual signal without changing the Add to Cart behavior.

2. For the Google Merchant XML feed issue specifically, since you are on Odoo Online, you can submit feedback directly to Odoo support. This is exactly the type of product improvement that gets prioritized when multiple merchants report it.

3. You can partially work around this by not enabling Sell when out of Stock globally, and instead managing availability manually: when stock hits zero and you want to take backorders, update the product to allow backorders at that point.

Your suggested improvement (showing Out of Stock on the product page while still allowing Add to Cart for backorderable products) is a very reasonable product feature request and aligns with how most eCommerce platforms handle this. Submitting this via Odoo's official feedback channel or voting on the GitHub issue tracker is the best path to getting it implemented natively.