Is there a way to give early access to my store for email subscribers?

[Minteror]

Hi there,

I am going to be launching my business on Friday, but wanted to give people that have subscribed early access to shop Thursday evening?

As a handmade business, my store will be open once a month for pre-orders. After I have a certain number of sales everything will be marked as sold out. 

I would like the ability to allow email subscribers to have access to shop before everyone else (going forward, most likely 15-30mins before it is open to everyone else)

Any suggestions are much appreciated.

[Luna]

Hey, @Minteror.

Thanks for posting this question. Congrats on your upcoming launch. I understand that you would like to make your shop available to subscribers before everyone else. That's a great idea! I'd be happy to provide you with a suggestion. 

Shopify allows you to add password protection to your store so that you can restrict customer access to your online store. You can create a password and give it to customers that you want to enter your store. When a customer arrives at your storefront, they will see a password landing page while this option is enabled. My suggestion is to enable this feature, send out an email to your subscribers on Thursday with the password, and then you can remove the password on Friday to allow everyone else in. It's really simple to enable/disable the password. To do so, you can follow these steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Preferences.

2. Scroll to the Password protection area, and check Enable password.

3. In Password, enter the password that you'll give to the customers who you want to be able to access your online store. Don't use the same password that you use to log into your admin.

4. In Message for your visitors, enter the message that you want to show on the password page. If you don't want to show a message, then leave this field blank.

5. Click Save.

When you're ready to open your store to everyone, you can disable the password by following these steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Preferences.

2. Go to the Password protection area.

3. Uncheck Enable password.

4. Click Save.

If you collect your subscriber list through Shopify, you can use Shopify Email to send a message to a specific group of customers (subscribers). To learn more about this, check out our help document: Email a specific group of customers. 

Let me know what you think of this idea! In the meantime, I'd love to hear more about your business. What type of products do you sell? 

[Luna · Accepted solution]

Hey, @Minteror.

Just checking in with you to make sure you got the help you needed. If you have any questions, let me know. I'm happy to continue to work on this together.

Best,

[Minteror]

Hi Luna,

Thank you so much. That was very helpful!

[Luna]

Hey, @Minteror.

So happy to hear that. All the best on your store launch - we're rooting for you!

Take care,

[Erynrosenbaum]

Hi! Do you know if there's any way to do this same idea with scheduled availability? Currently I schedule my one-of-a kind items for availability at a certain day and time, and they can sell out fast. I'd like to give email subscribers early access, and then later remove the restriction so everyone can access any remaining new products, without having to manually add/remove the password at the exact moment. Is there a way to schedule this?

[borinterior]

I have the same question! Did you solve it?

[Erynrosenbaum]

I did not find a free solution. I limped along with the manual password removal at the desired time, but then discovered that protecting my website with a password and then removing it had the effect of breaking all the links to product previews in the emails I had been sending out. I ended up purchasing a subscription to the  Locksmith app, and I have been very happy with its functionality. Does exactly what I want down to the second. I protect my collection with a password, schedule my items to go live at 5pm, and schedule the protection to be removed at 6pm. Works like a charm but is $10 per month. 

[AnneGloetz]

Heyy, 

is it also possible to protect a specific product (not the whole page)? So that Newsletter Clients can shop one specific product with early access, but our shop will be still open for everyone?

Thanks

Anne

[mexclusiveshop]

Hey thanks for the tips. It is very helpful, but doesn't this blocks the rest of the pages? 

[davidbg]

Hi @mexclusiveshop , yes that would block all pages. If you would like to restrict access to a specific product page or collection page without altering the rest of your website, you would have to use an app for that. Gatekeeper could be an option you can look into. It allows you to:
Steps
1. App Settings Page > Select a product or collection that you want to passcode protect.
2. Select the Date Range in which you want the passcode lock active.
3. Create your unique and fun passcode. 
4. Save it and share the passcode with the customers you want through an email service or another channel that you use. 
Hope this helped! Best of luck.

[tracyV]

Hello Luna - can you password protect a collection? I am relaunching my online store and I want to give my email list the opportunity to buy a ticket for 48 hour priority shopping. Is this possible somehow?

[SLUNKS1]

Hi, 

Is there a way to put a password on specific products only in our Shopify store? 

[studiochelsea]

Hello Luna,

I’m also a small business and I tried this method yesterday for my subscribers, and everyone was having issues with the checkout during “preview” mode when the site is protected by the password. They literally couldn’t purchase all day. I contacted Shopify support and they said my site is set up perfectly so don’t know why this is happening? It says in my store that customers cannot checkout when “preview” mode is enabled (site is only accessed by the password). Is there a way to get around this so I can offer early access to shop and they can actually checkout? Thanks so much for any help!!