How to Make Products View Only on Shopify with Private Link Sales (2025 Guide)

Shopify has been known to provide a one-in-all E-commerce solution with a vast set of features for all types of businesses, from small startups to big corporations, offering customizable options tailored to their varying needs. For instance, sometimes it requires store owners to display a product catalog without check options, either for showcasing, B2B reference or pre-launch campaigns. Not every product listed in a store is intended to be ready for sale. Thus, sometimes store owners have their selective (limited visibility) customers they wish to display selected products to.

With Shopify's vast features, whether you intend on showcasing products without enabling purchases, wish to organize your listings strategically or create exclusive sales accessed only through private links, the goals can be achieved and empowered through the provided tools.

In this blog, we will discuss how to manage the entire product list, organize collections, use private links for treasure-box sales, and more so on how to make products viewable only on Shopify.

How to Make Products View Only on Shopify

Now and then businesses may want to display certain products to be seen but never executed to purchase directly. This can be done to create a catalogue for wholesale clients, list out of stock products, or showcase items planned for launch in the future, thus turning them into view-only:

1. Remove the 'Add to Cart' Button Functionality

As part of theme customization, you can remove or hide the 'Add to Cart' button for certain products or collections. Customers can see the details of the products and also decide to take some action, which in this case, is no. Edit this in your theme's Shopify product template, and based on certain product tags or collections, you can set logic that displays or hides this button.

2. Choose 'Pause and Build' Plan

With Shopify, you can keep your store live and disable checkout features. This is called the 'Pause and Build' plan. This works well with companies looking to display products instead of selling them. In this case, customers can view the products, however, checkout is turned off.

3. Create a Private Collection

Collections not displayed in your store’s navigation are unattainable without a direct URL. This approach is ideal for specific product viewership without a public showcase. To do this, create a new collection, add the desired products, and do not link it to your store's menus. Provide this collection URL to the targeted audience.

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Setting Up Private Link Sales on Shopify

Private link sales are useful when you wish to provide particular customers with exclusive products or discounts. This is done during VIP sales, new products and wholesale clients. This is how you can go about a private link sale on Shopify-

1. Collections with a Password

Shopify provides a feature where you can password-protect your whole store. If this is not adequate for you, third-party apps can provide you with custom pricing that allows you to password-protect specific collections in Shopify. This protects customers who do not possess the password.

2. Sale Customization Alongside Specific Invite

The ability to create invitation-only sales is provided with Atelier. This app allows you to create custom URLs for these events, password sale protection, or even email whitelist VIP treatment which prevents any unwanted access. This way, invited consumers have control over what exclusive products can be obtained.

3. Customer Tags

Shopify does have the option to tag customers and set up conditions that will restrict certain customers or collections for tagged customers only, thus making it more exclusive, allowing only the tagged customers to view and buy the items or collections. It can be set with the help of an ancient tag added logic combined with custom or app logic to display select products.

Managing Your Shopify Product List

For managing an online store's shopping experience, managing your Shopify product list is essential. Below are some ways you can manage your product list:

1. Order by Collection

Product categorization into collections makes it simple for clients to search for specific products. Collections can be made for a certain category such as type of product, season, or sale items. Shopify offers both forms of collections: manual and automated. In manual collections, you have to add products one by one, whereas automated collections add products that meet certain conditions set by you, for example, a tag, price, etc.

2. Use Tags to describe Products

Using tags to mark every product helps in effective filtering, sorting and searching of any product. Tags are very helpful, for instance, you can make your search systems more efficient for customers looking for specific products by tagging your products with 'summer', 'new arrival' and 'bestseller' for easier navigation.

3. Use Product Tables and Lists

Certain apps like Shopify Products Table List aid in providing a tabulated view of the products, making available every product’s information at a glance, along with the option for some bulk actions. It is efficient for wholesale clients and B2B customers who require viewing many products for faster and easier bulk purchases.

4. Bulk Edit Products

Shopify's bulk editor enables inventory management editing on a broader scale. You can update prices, product descriptions, and manage inventory all at once. To use this tool, navigate to the Products page, select multiple items, and tap the "Edit Products" button. This allows further editing to be done on variants, SKUs, availability, and many more, enhancing productivity.

5. Track Inventory Accurately

To retain customer loyalty, businesses must keep track of inventory and stock levels. This allows accurate sales forecasting. Within Shopify, managed business accounts enjoy having stock level tracking options as well. Inventory quantities can be set, low-stock warnings configured, and over-selling restricted. There are also additional inventory control systems that can be linked for cross/warehouse channel live updating.

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Organizing Collections in Shopify

In Shopify, collections serve the purpose of improving the organization of the online store as well as aiding user navigation. The following are effective strategies to organize these collections.

1. Manual Versus Automated Collections

Curated collections or promotional/special collections can be put together easily by using manual collections. This setting gives you full control over collection creation and lets you add products at will. Automated collections, however, function by setting conditions that automatically include certain products based on set requirements and criteria like vendor, price, and tag. Not only do these collections streamline accuracy, but they can save time.

2. Nested Collections

While Shopify doesn't support sub-collections natively, you can simulate this by creating collections within collections using navigation menus and tags. For example, you can create a main collection for 'Clothing' and sub-collections for 'Men', 'Women', and 'Kids' by organizing your navigation menu accordingly.

3. Customize Collection Pages

Tailoring the appearance of your collection pages enhances the shopping experience and aligns with your brand's aesthetics. You can customize collection pages by editing your theme's code or using page builder apps. This allows you to modify layouts, add banners, or include promotional content specific to each collection.

4. Use Tags and Product Types Strategically

Tags and product types play a crucial role in automating collections and improving store organization. Consistently tagging products with relevant keywords allows you to group similar items effortlessly. You can then create automated collections based on these tags, ensuring new products are always categorized correctly without manual effort.

5. Optimize Collection SEO Settings

Optimizing your collection pages for search engines can drive more traffic to your Shopify store. Add unique titles, meta descriptions, and relevant keywords for each collection. Shopify lets you edit SEO settings at the bottom of each collection page. Proper SEO ensures that your collections rank well on search engines, attracting organic traffic and improving visibility.

Why Choose Quantum IT Innovation When It Comes To Shopify?

Quantum IT Innovation differentiates itself as a pioneer in Shopify store customization. With us, you can rest easy knowing that your store will look and operate smoothly with our expert professional input.

We Offer Different Services Such As:

Designing and Building Your Unique Custom Themes: We create and implement themes that are recognizable to your brand and also enhance usability.
Setup of Private Sale: Creating private sales only accessible through private links or with tags and allows customer tagging into specific groups.
Management of Product Visibility: Setting products to be viewed, not listed at all, or available to certain groups of customers.
Collection Structure: Arrangement of your product collections to aid the ease of getting to them.

Partner with us today to increase the effectiveness of your Shopify store and also enhance customer interaction.

Conclusion

The ability to determine visibility and order of listings of items is a crucial factor when tailoring the shopping experience on Shopify. Do you need to display certain products and not enable their purchase? Do you want to create sales meant for a few select customers? You will achieve all these with the right combination of expert customization done using Shopify’s powerful features. To know more about getting these steps executed, contact Quantum IT Innovation today.

FAQs

1. How do I make a product view-only on Shopify?

You can make a product view-only on Shopify by hiding the ‘Add to Cart’ button through theme customization or by using the ‘Pause and Build’ plan, which disables checkout while the store is still visible. This approach is ideal for catalog-style stores or showcasing upcoming product lines.

2. What is a private link sale on Shopify?

A private link sale is when you create a collection or product page that can only be accessed through a specific URL. This lets you sell certain products or offer certain discounts that are not available to the general public.

3. How do I arrange items into collections?

To organize items into collections, go to Products then Collections on your Shopify admin. You can create manual collections by adding products one at a time or automated collections by setting rules that automatically include products based on certain criteria like tags or price.

4. Is it possible to sell my products while hiding some of them from the main store?

Yes, certain products can be hidden from the main store but still be sold to customers with access by using tags. These tagged customers will have access to the hidden collection or customers without the tag will not.

5. How can Quantum IT Innovation help with my Shopify store?

Quantum IT Innovation offers customized solutions for your Shopify store, including theme development, private sale setups, product visibility management, and collection organization. Our expertise ensures your store aligns with your business goals and provides an optimal shopping experience for your customers.