By default, a product is visible and purchasable on your storefront after adding it to your catalog in the control panel. However, you may have certain products you want to restrict availability for, such as products that are only available in your physical store, or out-of-stock items you want to hide on the storefront.
You can configure your products’ availability in three different ways: specifying if and how your products can be purchased, toggling their visibility on the storefront, and limiting accessibility by adding them to a hidden category.
Setting Product Purchasability
Editing a product's purchasability setting allows you to provide shoppers with a sneak peek at upcoming products, take pre-orders for products not yet available, and disable purchasing for out-of-stock products that don't track inventory in the control panel.
To manage a product’s purchasability, locate the product in Products › View and edit it. In the Purchasability section, choose from the following options:
- This product can be purchased in my online store — the default value; allows shoppers to order the product in your store
- This product is coming soon but I want to take pre-orders — allows shoppers to place an order for your product in advance to be fulfilled later
- Message — message that will display in place of the Add to Cart button
- Release Date — date you expect the product to be in stock
- Remove pre-order status on this date — product will be changed back to Product can be purchased in my online store automatically on the selected date
- This product cannot be purchased in my online store — for products to be marked as catalog-only. You can still add the product to manual orders.
- Show "Call for pricing" message instead of the price — once enabled, type in your desired message to display in place of the Add to Cart button
When importing products by CSV file, use the Allow Purchases field if you need to enable or disable purchasability in bulk. Note that purchasability cannot be configured in the modern Import/Export experience.
Toggling Product Visibility
Product visibility refers to your products’ visibility on your storefront. When you make a product not visible, it will not appear on any category pages, search results, or product panels (like New or Featured), and customers will not be able to access its product detail page (it will result in a 404 error if the URL is not redirected to another page).
There are several reasons why you might not want to have a product visible on the storefront:
- A product may become temporarily unavailable, and you don't track inventory.
- While creating a new product, you might want to save and come back to it later before publishing it.
- You want to add a product to a manual order, but not have it publicly available on the storefront.
There are four methods for managing product visibility in your store:
- Toggling in the product list
- Toggling in the Product Edit page
- Toggling in bulk
- Adjusting via inventory settings
In the Product List
If your control panel is using the Single-Channel Product List, you can toggle storefront visibility directly from the list by clicking the eye button next to a product.
If you have the Multi-Channel Product List, click the Action icon next to a product and select Visible on Storefront from the menu.
If your store has multi-storefront enabled, click the Action icon and select Enable visibility or Disable visibility from the menu.
You can also quickly toggle storefront visibility direct from the list by clicking on the visibility status icon next to a product, then selecting Enabled or Disabled.
In the Product Edit Page
When adding or editing a product, you can toggle visibility using the Visible on Storefront checkbox under the Basic Information section.
In Bulk
You can toggle Visibility for groups of products in bulk using the Bulk Edit tool in the control panel.
Product Visible is also an updatable field when importing products with a CSV file.
Via Inventory Settings
If you track inventory for your product, you have the option of automatically hiding a product or variant option from the storefront when it is out of stock. For more information on configuring these settings, see Inventory Tracking.
Limiting Product Accessibility
Sometimes you will find yourself needing to restrict access to a product on your storefront, such as when offering a custom product to a specific shopper. The product needs to be accessible by direct link or URL, but remain hidden from the storefront menu. You can achieve this by creating a non-visible category, and then adding the product to that category.
Note that when using this method, your products will still show up in the storefront search and product panels, such as the New Products panel. Consider using Customer Groups if you need advanced product and customer segmentation.
Creating a Hidden Category
In Products › Product Categories, create a category and fill in any additional information. When done, click Save & Exit to be taken back to the Categories page.
Hide the category by clicking the green checkmark under the Visible in Menu column for your newly created category. This category cannot be accessed, but its child products are still available via URL and storefront search.
If you want to display multiple products in a category that is hidden on the storefront, but still accessible via URL, create another category and return to the Categories page. Click on your new category, then drag it below and right of the original hidden category to “nest” it as a subcategory.
Adding Products to the Hidden Category
In Products › View, create a new product or edit an existing one. In the Basic Information section, add the product to the hidden category you created earlier. Do not add it to any other categories.
Pro Tip! You can add multiple products to a hidden category using the Bulk Edit tool in the control panel.
To check that the product is still visible, click the Action icon next to the product and select View to be taken to the hidden product page.
FAQ
Can I accept back orders?
Our pre-order functionality can be tweaked to accept back orders as well. Just use the pre-order message field to let the client know that the product can be back-ordered. You might also want to provide an estimate for when the product will be back in stock if you have that date available.
Can I notify shoppers automatically when a product or a product variant is back in stock?
Yes, check out the App Marketplace for in-stock notification and other inventory management apps. These apps allow your customers to be alerted when a product is back in stock; however, they cannot be used for variants of a product, such as a t-shirt size.
Is there a setting to make an item available for purchase even if the inventory is set to zero?
While there is no built-in setting that will enable the purchase of products that are out of stock, the App Marketplace has several inventory management apps that let you customize your inventory settings to allow tracking for back-ordered products, and notify your customers when products they are interested in are back in stock.
Can I specify pre-order information and “Call for pricing” messaging via CSV import?
No, the Allow Purchases field in the CSV file only determines whether a product is or is not available for purchase.
How do I disable purchasing for all products?
Go to Settings › General, then click the Miscellaneous tab. Under Advanced Store Settings, uncheck the box next to Allow Purchasing.
When this setting is unchecked, your products will still be visible, but customers will not be able to add them to their cart.
Why is my product not visible on the storefront if it is in stock and its visibility is toggled on?
If you have customer groups in your store, your product may be in a category that is hidden to guest customers. Go to Customers › Customer Groups and view the group set as the Default group for guest customers, then check the Group Access settings. If a category is unchecked, the products within will not be visible to any customers in the group, including guest customers.
If your store is enabled for multi-storefront, a product must be assigned to a storefront channel as well as a category. If not, it won't be displayed in the storefront, nor will it be available via search or direct URL.
Why are my customers unable to add a pre-order product to their cart?
If your customers are unable to add some or all products to their cart, see the troubleshooting steps found on Troubleshooting | "Add to Cart" Button Missing.
