Showing products even if they're not available to be shipped

Shopify Discussion
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Topic summary

Merchant with licensing-based regional shipping limits wants products to remain visible to out-of-region visitors but be non-purchasable, to avoid collections appearing “sold out.” They use Shopify Markets Pro (Shopify’s cross‑border/market management) to enforce availability.

Restrictions example:

  • Collection A: worldwide
  • Collection B: worldwide except Japan
  • Collection C: only the Americas

Problem: Viral organic traffic from restricted regions sees empty collections. Merchant already swaps the Add to Cart button via Klaviyo for restricted visitors, but hidden products prevent any display.

Shopify reply: Currently, Shopify hides products in regions where they’re not available for sale. Suggested workaround: adjust collections so none are 100% restricted in any region. Feedback noted for the roadmap.

Merchant response: Workaround is infeasible due to legal licensing obligations. Asks if a redirect can be set to a custom page explaining restrictions instead of the homepage. Store URL provided for review: pawsonify.com.

Outcome/status: No built‑in solution provided; workaround rejected. Request for custom redirect guidance remains open.

Summarized with AI on December 30. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hello!

I sell officially licensed merchandise which has licensing restrictions. Each of our collections has different restrictions, so Markets Pro has come in handy for creating different shipping profiles and making sure people can’t ship there. However, I have recently run into one problem I would love to see if there’s a solution for (without an app if possible?).

Here’s a basic scenario of our collections:

  • Collection A - Can ship worldwide with no restrictions
  • Collection B - Can ship worldwide except Japan
  • Collection C - Can only ship to North, Central, and South America

When it comes to paid marketing at least I am able to strictly target the United States, but with organic marketing you never know when something will go viral. I recently had a reel for “Collection C” go viral overseas, but anytime anyone goes to the collection it looks empty so people have been frustrated that I’m promoting something that’s “sold out” or I keep being asked when I will “restock”.

Is there any way to still show the products to these users, even if they can’t purchase? I have a Klaviyo location tracker that also replaces the “Add to Cart” button if the user is in a region they can’t purchase at…

Thanks!

2

Hey Vensy,

My name is Mo, I work on the Markets Pro team. Can you share the URL of your store so I can take a look?

Thanks,

3

https://www.pawsonify.com

4

Thanks, you are correct, currently Shopify hides restricted products in regions where they are not available for sale. A workaround I can suggest, if it works for your business, you can edit your collections if possible so that no collection is 100% restricted in a given region.

Thank you for sharing feedback on how product availability management works today. We’ll definitely consider it in our roadmap.

5

That doesn’t work because we are contractually bound to sell certain collections within certain regions. It’s not something we chose, but a legal requirement.

Is there any way to create a redirect to a page other than the homepage? I would like to create a page that describes our licensing restrictions, but I doubt customers would find that.