Hiding Vendor information from source code

[ksmallg]

Hi. Anyone who visits my site (or any Shopify site) can view the source code and see the vendor for any product. I would like to keep this information private as I don't want my customers knowing where things come from—but it is very handy for me to have that information associated with each product.

Additionally, I have customers who stay up-to-date on new products via RSS feeds—and that vendor information is prominently shown in their feed. I'd really like vendor information to be completely hidden. It seems just as important as the cost of a product—which would never been shown to a customer. There must be a way to keep the vendor info hidden. Can you help?

[Adrianm2]

Do you know how to code if i send you the steps?

[ksmallg]

Well, my developer does, but we’ve not been able to figure it out thus far and would be grateful for any tips, leads, suggestions or steps.

[Guleria]

Hello @ksmallg ,

It sounds like your developer hides the vendor information with css that's why it's visible for customers in the source code.

Ask your developer to remove/comment the vendor code in the theme files.

Regards
Guleria

[jtyarks]

Thanks for responding, Guleria. Unfortunately, this isn't a matter of hiding the vendor in the theme. (The theme being used doesn't output the vendor anywhere.)

We're attempting to hide the data that automatically gets appended to the {{ content_for_header }} area in Shopify's analytics scripts, individual product JSON, and collection atom feeds. However, as Tim described below, this likely isn't possible with the default vendor field.

[tim]

There is no need to modify theme code to remove/hide vendor information -- it would not help.

Say, if your product URL is shop.com/products/product, you can also visit shop.com/products/product.js or shop.com/products/product.json to notice that this information is still available for anyone to see.

It's not made to be human-readable, but with proper JSON formatter Chrome extension you can see it better:

This is base Shopify functionality and you can't modify this.

A good option to solve your problem is to remove information from the product Vendor field and store it in a product metafield.

It will still be available almost the same way, but not visible to the outsiders.

This data migration can be done with Flow, so not a huge undertaking. Or CSV export-import...

[jtyarks]

Thank you, Tim, this does seem to be the correct answer. While the 128 value limit makes using metafields likely unlikely unwise longterm for this kind of business (i.e., one with several vendors), but it does seem to be the only option for completely obscuring this data.

For folks who are curious, we've had various responses that seem to imply otherwise. E.g., a Shopify contact said "In general, we have no direct way of hiding the vendor information, or keeping it private in RSS feeds, as its visibility is managed within your theme. While it's possible, this would involve tweaking the theme's code file." and then a contacted Shopify Partner said "You're right — by default, Shopify includes vendor metadata in the product's liquid object, which can sometimes be exposed through theme templates or RSS feeds if not properly handled. While this information is useful on the backend, it's absolutely possible to prevent it from being visible on the storefront or through public-facing feeds." ...but it's unclear what method(s) the Shopify Chat person and this partner seem to know that the rest of the internet does not.

[tim]

Not sure which of 128 value limits you're talking about -- in my opinion none of them applies to using metafield as a replacement for Vendor field.

Potentially you can modify what's output via content_for_header, but this is never recommended. And .js and .json pages are there to stay.

Having said that -- there is a bunch of things you can control better if you go headless. But...

[Dan-From-Ryviu]

HI @ksmallg 

You can try to find and turn off Show vendor option in your store admin > Sales channels > Online Store > Themes > Customize > click on Homepage dropdown menu at the top center > Collections > Default collection > Product grid.

[jtyarks]

Thanks for the reply, Dan. Unfortunately, unless we're missing something, this is a front-end option for most themes which only removes the data from the template; it does not remove it from analytics (e.g., #web-pixels-manager-setup script in the header), the product's JSON/JS, and the collection atom feed. 

Using the Dawn theme demo site as an example:

• Navigate to a collection, https://theme-dawn-demo.myshopify.com/collections/bags, search for "vendor"
• Go to the bag's atom feed: https://theme-dawn-demo.myshopify.com/collections/bags.atom
• Navigate to a product's JSON: https://theme-dawn-demo.myshopify.com/products/small-naomi-gummy.json