Are you looking for ways to lock or  hide Shopify store content  such as products, collections, prices, add-to-cart buttons, etc from your store visitors? Are you tired of your customers adding products to the cart without purchasing them? Or do you simply want to password protect your product pages so that only specific customers will be able to see and buy these products? If so, then this guide is for you.

In this guide, we will discuss everything you need to know about how to lock and hide your Shopify store. The tips & tricks mentioned here will help you with how to hide prices, hide add-to-cart buttons, hide products & collections, or hide a specific page in your Shopify storefront from specific visitors. We will also show you how to do it yourself – with or without using a Shopify app.

Before we start, let’s understand why you might want to lock your Shopify store.

Why you might want to lock your Shopify store? (Use cases)

There are various reasons why you might want to lock your Shopify store.

1. To hide product or collection pages in your store.
2. To hide prices of specific products from specific customers.
3. To password protect your products using an access code/password.
4. To enable “login to view price” in order to display product pricing to only logged-in customers.
5. To hide the add-to-cart button if your product(s) is out of stock.
6. To offer custom products that require a special order form. OR
7. You might simply want more control over who has access to your product pages and entire storefront.

By implementing these, you can create a seamless customer experience for those who should have access to your locked content.

Now, let’s discuss a few of these reasons in detail and see how to implement them to lock your Shopify storefront.

Read also: How to Pause Shopify Store for the Holidays: Tips and Tricks?

How to hide products and collections in Shopify? (without an app)

Locking your Shopify store to hide products and collections is a great way to keep your products hidden from your customers/visitors. To do this without using a 3rd party Shopify app, follow these steps:

[i] To hide product(s) in Shopify

Step 1: Go to the Products section in your Shopify Admin

Step 2: Select the products you want to hide from your storefront by clicking on the checkbox(es)

Step 3: Click on the More actions dropdown button

Step 4: Now, click on Remove available channel(s) in the dropdown menu

That’s it! Your selected products won’t be displayed on your storefront

[ii] To hide collection(s) in Shopify

Step 1: Go to the Collections menu in Shopify Admin

Step 2: Select the collection/s you want to hide by clicking on the checkbox(es)

Step 3: Click on More actions and choose the Make collection unavailable option in the dropdown

That’s it. Your selected collections won’t be displayed in your storefront.

How to hide price of specific products in Shopify? (without an app)

Shopify settings do not allow you to hide prices for specific customers (with a tag). However, You can hide the prices of your products on the entire storefront (for all customers) by editing your currency formats. Please follow these steps to do it:

Step 1: Go to the Settings menu in Shopify Admin

Step 2: Now, go to Store details

Step 3: Navigate to Store currency and click on Change formatting

Step 4: Now, in the HTML with currency section, replace the placeholder text with:

<span class=hidden>${{ amount }} USD</span>

Step 5: In the HTML without currency section, replace the placeholder text with:

<span class=hidden>${{ amount }}</span>

Step 6: Hit the Save button

That’s it! All your product prices will be hidden on the storefront.

Important Note: Do not change or replace anything in the Email with currency or Email without currency section.

How to password-protect your products using a password?

Shopify settings do not allow you to password-protect individual product pages on your store. However, it allows you to do the following:

1. Create a password-protected page by customizing your current theme.
2. Lock your entire storefront using a password.

Let’s look at these two in detail:

1. Create a password-protected page in your store

You can create a password-protected page by creating it using your theme.

To do this, follow the below steps:

Step 1: Go to Themes in your Shopify Admin

Step 2: Navigate to your Current theme and click on Customize button

Step 3: Click on the Others section in the drop-down list (as shown in the image below)

Step 4: Now, click on the Password

Note: If you don’t see the Password in the dropdown, go to Preferences and click on the Password protected checkbox

Step 5: Click on Add section to add desired items to your password-protected page

You can add sections such as:

• Featured product(s)
• Featured collection(s)
• Blog posts
• Collapsible content
• Collection list
• Contact form
• Email signup banner

And more.

Step 6: Add sections, make required edits, and click on the Save button

Step 7: Now, to customize your password-protected page, click on Theme settings displayed at the bottom left corner

Step 8: You can customize your fonts, colors, layouts, favicon, and more in the Themes menu on the right side

Step 9: When you’re done customizing, hit the Save button

3. Lock your entire storefront using a password

If you want to lock your entire online store and restrict it to only specific customers with an access code or password then follow these steps:

Step 1: Go to Online Store -> Preferences

Step 2: Navigate to Restrict store access section

Step 3: Click on Password protected checkbox

Step 4: Enter a password in the Password placeholder

Step 5: Hit the Save button

To hide the add-to-cart button without an app follow this guide by Shopify. (If you’re not from a technical background then you might need help from a Shopify expert to do this for you).

By following these simple (DIY) steps, you can keep your shop confidential and protect your business interests.

Read Also: Shopify Security: Its Importance, Checklist and Tools [2022]

Lock your Shopify store with Wholesale Lock Manager (WLM)

Making code changes in your theme can be a tricky job and it may break your theme’s functionality or even take down your entire Shopify store. To prevent any such problem and do the customizations in a safe way, you can add the Wholesale Lock Manager (WLM) app to your store.

 Wholesale Lock Manager  provides you with very useful features if you’re looking to lock or hide the contents of your store. Here are some of the best features of Wholesale Lock Manager:

1. Display or hide specific content on your Shopify store

With WLM, you get the ability to hide or display specific products, collections, page(s), URL(s), or even your entire storefront.

2. Display or hide Shopify store content to your selected customers

You can choose to display or hide specific content on your store to the specific customer that you select. These could be only logged-in customers or customers with a specific “tag” added.

You can also use the passcode feature of WLM to password-protect your selected content on your Shopify storefront. This may help you with displaying separate prices to your retail and B2B customers.

3. Hide prices of your products for non-logged-in customers (login to view price)

4. Hide add-to-cart with a single click

5. Hide certain products in the search bar with a single click

There are many other such good features offered by Wholesale Lock Manager that provides you complete access control of your Shopify store.

Sum Up…

Locking your Shopify store can help you achieve all of these things and more. By hiding prices, add-to-cart buttons, or even entire products from your storefront, you can create a seamless customer experience for those who should have access to your locked content. 

Further, by password protecting specific pages or collections, you can ensure that only authorized users will see sensitive information – like pricing details or pre-order items. 

We recommend you to do your customizations carefully and without breaking your store. Happy selling 🙂