The checklist for whether items are in stock follows. Some will seem stupid until the first time you spend an hour trying to figure this problem out:
- The products must be Visible in Catalog.
- The products must be Enabled.
- Product must have a stock Quantity.
- The product must be set to In Stock.
- If the product is set not to track stock, it still has to have a stock Quantity and be set to In Stock.
- The product must be assigned to the target Category.
- If using multi-website mode (or if you imported the products through Data Flow), the products must be assigned to the target Website.
- You must refresh your Cache / Indices, just to make sure.
Welcome to Magento. Hope that helps!
Joe