Private Listings
Private Listings lets you decide who can see a product and who can see its price. Use it to keep a listing out of your shop but still send the link to a customer, to put a password on an item, to show wholesale prices only to your wholesale buyers, or to send one person a private link you can switch off later.
Private Listings is included on the Plus plan.
Who can see this listing?
Open any product, scroll to Visibility & Access, and choose one of five answers:
- Everyone — the normal setting. The listing is in your shop and in search.
- Hidden from my shop — it disappears from your shop pages, your categories and your site search, but the link still works so you can send it to someone.
- Anyone with the password — the listing stays in your shop, but the page asks for a password before it shows the product.
- Signed-in customers only — anyone with an account on your site can see it. Everyone else cannot.
- Only the groups or customers I choose — you name the people. Nobody else can see it, even with the link.
Whichever you choose, you can always see your own listing while you are signed in to your dashboard, so you can check it looks right.
Hidden listings and the link
When you choose Hidden from my shop, a second checkbox appears: Anyone with the link can still see it.
- Ticked — the listing is out of your shop and out of search, but anyone you send the link to can open it. Good for a newsletter, a customer you are quoting, or a look-book item.
- Unticked — the listing is sealed. The link stops working for everyone, and the only way in is a private share link you create yourself.
Private share links
A private share link is a one-off web address that opens a listing for whoever you send it to, without giving them a password. You can switch off any link on its own, and you can see whether it was ever opened.
- Open the product and find Visibility & Access.
- Click Private share links.
- Fill in Who is this for? — a note to yourself, such as Sarah — trade show. The person you send it to never sees this.
- Optionally set Stop working after a number of days, or Limit the number of opens. Set the limit to 1 for a link that works once.
- Click Create link, then copy the address from the table and send it on.
The table shows every link you have made for that product, whether it has been opened and when, and a Turn off button. Turning a link off takes effect straight away, even for someone who has already used it.
Password-protected listings
Choose Anyone with the password and a Password box appears on the listing. You can also set one password for your whole shop:
- Go to Dashboard → Settings → Store.
- Find Password-Protected Products.
- Fill in Shared Password and click Save.
A listing with its own password uses that one. A listing without its own password falls back to the shared password. If you tick the password option and leave both empty, the listing is hidden from everyone until you set one — your shop will tell you so when you open the page.
Who can see the price?
Under Visibility & Access you can also set Who can see the price? separately from who can see the listing. This is how you show a product to everyone but keep your trade prices for your trade customers.
- Everyone — the normal setting.
- Signed-in customers only — shoppers must have an account and be signed in.
- Only the groups or customers I choose — only the people you name see the price.
Hiding the price also hides the Add to cart button, so nobody can buy something they have not been quoted for. In their place, shoppers see a short message. To change the wording, go to Dashboard → Settings → Store → Password-Protected Products and fill in What to show instead of a hidden price. Leave it blank and your shop says Contact us for pricing, or Sign in to see the price where that is what you asked for.
Choosing who sees what
When you limit a listing or a price to particular people, you can manage it one customer at a time rather than one product at a time.
- Go to Dashboard → Private Listings.
- You will see every customer who has private access and how many listings they can see.
- Click Give someone access and start typing their email address to add someone new.
- On their page, tick everything that customer is allowed to see, and click Save what they can see.
Changes take effect immediately. Saving one customer's page never changes what anyone else can see.
Where private listings do and do not appear
Once a listing is anything other than Everyone, your shop keeps it out of:
- your shop pages, category pages and product search
- your site search results
- your sitemap, and it asks search engines not to index it
- your Google Shopping and Pinterest product feeds
- the IndieMade marketplace
- Etsy — a private listing is not sent to Etsy at all
If a listing was already on Etsy before you made it private, it stays on Etsy until you remove it there yourself. Your shop will tell you when that is the case, because deactivating an Etsy listing loses its history and that should be your decision, not ours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my customer need an account?
Only for Signed-in customers only and for Only the groups or customers I choose. Hidden listings, passwords and private share links all work for someone with no account at all.
What is the difference between a password and a private share link?
A password is one secret you give to everybody. A private share link is a separate address for each person, which you can switch off on its own and which tells you whether it was opened. If you want to stop one customer seeing an item without disturbing anyone else, use a share link.
Can I see whether someone opened my link?
Yes. The share links table shows how many times each link has been opened and the date it was last used.
What happens when I turn off a share link?
It stops working straight away, including for anyone who has already used it. They see a short message asking them to request a new link.
Will hiding a product break the link I already sent?
Not unless you want it to. A hidden listing keeps working for anyone with the link while Anyone with the link can still see it stays ticked. Untick it and old links stop working.
Do private listings still show in my dashboard?
Yes. Everything in your dashboard behaves as normal — the product list, orders and reports all still show private listings. Only your public shop is affected.
What about the product photos?
Photos are not password protected. Someone who already has the direct address of an image file can still open it. The listing page, the price and the Add to cart button are all protected.