Terms, such as "out-of-stock," "sold out," and "unavailable" are commonly used by retailers to communicate a product or brand outage. Although these terms are technically equivalent, prior research on product outage and product scarcity suggest that they may be interpreted and processed differently by consumers. The present research investigated whether the manner in which a product outage was framed elicited different consumer behavioral intentions, attributions, and perceptions in the context of online retailing. Data were collected by means of an online experiment.The experiment incorporated a hypothetical scenario approach in which research participants were asked to react to a particular combination of treatment and blocking factors. Results demonstrated that ceteris paribus, framing a product or brand outage as "sold out" produces fewer negative product and website reactions than does framing it as "out-of-stock" or "unavailable."framing effect, online retailing, out-of-stock, product outage, sold out, unavailable 1 | INTRODUCTION Preliminary figures from Statista indicate that retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. were estimated to be a minimum of $547 billion in 2019 and were projected to grow to $740 billion by 2023. 1 Since product and brand outages (hereafter "product outages") are inevitable from time to time, it is imperative that online retailers strategically confront such occurrences and appropriately communicate the availability of products and brands that they market, not only to maximize sales but also to properly provide customers and potential customers with information that they can use to make informed purchase decisions.Out-of-stock, sold out, or unavailable? Retailers, and especially e-retailers or online retailers, use terms, such as these to communicate a product outage to potential purchasers. For example, brief perusal of the internet reveals a ToysRus website that lists a particular Rallye bicycle as "out-of-stock." Simultaneously, a Sennheiser headphone is "currently unavailable" on Amazon, and a Facebook post states that a Keenan McKenzie CD is "sold out." Product outage is a common occurrence and an endemic problem, especially for holidays (e.g., Christmas), promotional sales days (e.g., Black Friday), and newly released items (e.g., Apple iphone). 2 The consequences of inventory shortages are a significant setback for retailers in both tangible (reduced revenue and loss of profit) and intangible (decreased customer satisfaction and loyalty) ways (e.g., Breugelmans, Campo, &