To provide out of stock information on individual merchandise, its material, etc., at the time of selecting them and to eliminate the selection of the out of stock merchandise by a consumer so as to prevent confusion by confirming the presence or absence of the merchandise and permitting the merchandise confirmed as out of stock not to be displayed as a selection candidate at the time of selecting the merchandise.

An electronic catelogue device 10 is constituted by connecting ROM 30, a display device 40, RAM 50, a selecting device 60 and an external storage device 70 to CPU 20 which controls a whole system. When an access is given from the electronic catalague device 10 or at need, a host computer 80 transmits presence or absence information of the merchandise to the electronic catalogue device 10. Thus, presence or absence of the merchandise displayed on the merchandise selecting screen is compared with a list indicating stock information of the merchandise and the merchandise number and the merchandise selecting button of the merchandise recognized as out of stock are not displayed in the screen. Therefore, the comsumer is prevented from selecting the out of stock merchandise.