The visibility of WooCommerce products is an essential feature. Some businesses hide it while some remove the products from an online store. But do you know deleting the product may hurt your search ranking?
WooCommerce, the genius platform gives you an option to hide products. Yes, you read it right. You can hide products in WooCommerce from your wholesale or retail customers.
Reasons to hide products in WooCommerce
Some businesses face selling distress because they simultaneously handle B2B buyers and retail users (clients). Or, the business owners want to share exclusive products with members only.
There are numerous methods to hide products in WooCommerce. Let us check some cases where hiding products is proven beneficial.
Read also: How To Test WooCommerce Checkout And Payments?
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Shipping is not possible for specific locations
Amazon.com (see the image below) is not shipping this product to certain locations in India.
Have you seen similar cases while browsing the internet?
Some items cannot be internationally shipped. This may be because of legal or logistical reasons. It is better to hide products in WooCommerce for shoppers who are outside your shipping zone.
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Some products in your inventory are seasonal
There are certain products that are sold at a specific time of the year. For instance, Christmas trees, Halloween costumes, etc. It does not make great sense if you display it off-season unless you are planning for a clearance sale.
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You sell custom tailored or branded products
There may be cases wherein you have to hide items if they are exclusively meant for a certain person or store. You may have to hide products in WooCommerce for other users. These products will not be visible to the people who are not on the list.
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Products for registered users (clients)
There may be occasions when you want to give special offers to your loyal customers. You can buy the products in WooCommerce from shoppers who are not your members yet. It is also the best way to instigate a user to create an account with your business for exclusive deals.
Tips to hide products in WooCommerce
A. Use WooCommerce Settings to hide products in WooCommerce
When you go for this method, there is a caveat. Your product will be hidden from your shop pages. Now, if your user gets a link to the product page, then they can access it.
Hence, this method is not a mere solution as you cannot make your product private entirely. It is inefficient because you have to manually make the changes for each product.
You will be stressed to efficiently assign the products to a particular category and then hide it.
If you do not have any problem accessing the product using a direct link, then go for this.
1. Log in to the account of WooCommerce
Go to the admin dashboard on your WordPress website, and log in for this.
2. Click “Products Menu”
Please check the image for reference. Tap the button “Product Menu” and navigate to the product. Hide it by using the option of visibility.
3. Choose Product
To access the product you need to edit the screen. From the list, select the product you wish to hide. Tap the button “Edit”.
4. Press “Catalog Visibility”
On the editing screen, you will see the option “Catalog visibility” on the product’s right side. Please check it below to publish the meta box.
Click the link for the dropdown menu and tap “Hidden”.
5. Go for “Hidden”
Tap “OK” when you check “Hidden” and press “UPDATE” to complete.
It’s done!! Please try other methods if this one does not work well for you.
B. Use Plugin to hide products in WooCommerce
Here you can see how to hide products on WooCommerce using the plugin.
You can use the plugin “WooCommerce Members Only”. This plugin gives an upper hand to hide items on WooCommerce in many ways.
It can help you to hide all products, individually, or by category.
- Hide products
Open this on the Edit Product Page to hide WooCommerce products individually. Next, you have to scroll to the area of Product data. Choose the option “Members only”.
Select “ Restriction method” from the menu of the dropdown.
For instance, if you choose the option “Password”, you will see prompt messages for password. Only through this, the users may unlock the product.
Now if you want to hide WooCommerce products based on the category, visit WooCommerce. From the WordPress website’s admin panel, you need to click “Settings” and click “Members Only”.
Make sure to set the option “Restricted Content” after selecting “Restriction Method” to specified categories.
C. Hide products in WooCommerce as per User Role
Based on the roles of the user, you can hide products in WooCommerce. You can do this for an individual product or multiple products.
Please remember that you have set this up in a few minutes.
Visit “WooCommerce” and go to “Settings”.
Navigate for “Members Only” and choose “Restriction Method” for the user role.
Using the option of “Restricted Content”, make a decision whether you want to hide all/ certain category product (s).
If you are choosing “Specified Categories” the section on Restricted Categories will allow you to define the restriction. Please note this is for WooCommerce product categories.
Under the section “Permitted User Roles”, pick one or more user roles. The users with this role can access the hidden products of WooCommerce.
D. Hide products in WooCommerce based on log-in status
If you own a membership website you can hide the WooCommerce products based on the log-in status of the user. You can even create hidden items of WooCommerce by log-in status.
Browse for “WooCommerce” and tap “Settings”. Click “Members Only”. You need to set “Log in Status” for the Restriction Method.
Use the option Restricted Content. Come into a decision whether you want to hide all/ certain category WooCommerce products.
You need to specify the product categories of WooCommerce in the section of Restricted Categories.
E. Hide products in WooCommerce with Passwords
You can apply for single or multiple passwords using the WooCommerce Members Only plugin. You can also apply it for WooCommerce products and WooCommerce product categories in your shop.
This is the best solution for business owners who are looking for simple methods to execute promotions and marketing campaigns.
Navigate to “WooCommerce” and tap “Settings”. Go for “Members Only”. For the Restriction Method, you have to set the Password.
Make a decision whether you are planning to hide one or all products of WooCommerce using the option of Restricted content.
Choose the categories of the WooCommerce product that you want to hide in the section of Restricted Categories. The option of Password Form Page will allow you to pick the page to display the password form.
With a multiple or single password, you can hide individual WooCommerce products. Head to the tab “Members Only” for this. Please check this in the settings of Product data.
F. Hide individual products in WooCommerce by User ID
On occasion, you may have to hide particular products of WooCommerce. This is in the case wherein you want a few members to access the WooCommerce product.
To initiate this, you have to navigate for the product you plan to hide. You need to scroll to the section of Product data. Hit “Members Only”.
Set “By User” to set the Restriction Method. Make sure to place the User ID. This is for the users to which you plan to give access.
Browse to the “Users” to get the USER IDs. On the WordPress admin dashboard, press “All Users”. Check for the desired users. You can see the USER ID next to the username.
Make sure to check the box “Next”. This is next to the option “Archives”. You can choose to hide the items of WooCommerce in archives. This can be your tag archives, category pages, and the main store page.
How do you redirect users from hidden products?
You can redirect your users if they try to access your hidden products. This is a great approach for membership websites.
Stop over to the WordPress admin panel, and hit “WooCommerce”. Then click “Settings” and “Members Only”.
Pick “Restriction Method” from the dropdown.
Redirect to the page that you want your unauthorized user should go to. You can redirect them to a personalized landing page or any of your one WooCommerce default pages.
For this, you need to choose the action settings “Redirect To section” or “If Restricted”.
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