Hi there 

I have an online store where make and sell childrens clothes.

https://www.meclothing-shop.co.uk/store/c3/girls-dresses

If i no longer sell a specific product which i've been ranking for, for example a girls dress. Now If I delete the product listing how does this affect my SEO in Google? listen to podcasts which say its bad to delete as that creates the 404!

So would i be better to hide the listing but if google has already recognised the listing and started crawling it then that would be bad i'm guessing ?

So? What would be best practice ? Would edit the listing to something else? Or keep it and redirect it but if i did that i would then need to put its out or stock (which would then annoy customer) 

Confusing, Sorry hope this makes sense

krissie