Why You Need a WooCommerce Private Store and How to Build One in Minutes

WooCommerce is one of the most popular platforms for building any e-commerce website, powering over 3.5 million online stores.  This powerful open-source plugin is designed for customizable WordPress-based websites that want to create an online store. The many beautiful features of WooCommerce make it the number one choice for every e-commerce store. One of its key uses is to create a private store, allowing only registered members to access it. WooCommerce private store enables you to hide your entire store or specific products and pages from non-logged-in users.

Building a private store in WooCommerce is an excellent idea for several reasons.  It lets you make your store a members-only site, a niche service business, or a need-to-know online store. Privatizing online content from guests or visitors can force them to log in/register to access it. There are multiple WordPress plugins available that can provide you with a private store capability.

This article will discuss why you need a WooCommerce private store and how you can build one in minutes. Let's begin.

Why Do You Need a WooCommerce Private Store?

WooCommerce helps you create a private store, allowing you to make an exclusive shopping space and provide access to your favorite customers only. Creating a WooCommerce private store restricts the non-registered public from accessing your entire WooCommerce website, including its specific categories, pages, and products, and forces more users to register at your store.

You need to use WooCommerce Private Store plugins for your site in multiple scenarios. For example, if you are running a wholesale or B2B business and want to restrict access to your store to only approved customers or offer exclusive products or pricing to your members. Sometimes, you want to set up a private store just for those special occasions or a private pre-launch or pre-order shop if you're launching a new product or service.

Controlled and restricted access helps customize your registration pages and manage new signups or sign-ins with manual approval for added security and a more tailored user experience by providing an excellent shopping environment to your registered customers.  Additionally, the WooCommerce private shop extension allows you to decide whether restricted content or pages can be indexed and ranked by Google.  Private store extension also helps you manually review and approve new registrations, customize specific form titles, logos, and text, and redirect after login to the previous page.

How to Build a WooCommerce Private Store in Minutes

Privatizing online stores means only registered customers can access your store and shop from your website. The private store for WooCommerce adds the feature to force guest customers to register first to view the private products, product categories, product tags, and pages.

Installation

To install and menu and the WordPress Private Plugin, sign up on WordPress, go to the "Plugins" menu, and download the WooCommerce Store Plugin. Now click on "Add new" & then the "Upload Plugin" button and upload the plugin Zip file downloaded from WooCommerce "private-store-for-woocommerce.zip." After the downloading has finished, install and activate the plugin. You will find a new “Private Store" menu in the admin menu. With the help of this plugin, you may hide your entire WooCommerce store or specific products while keeping the rest of your site public. The WooCommerce Private Shop plugin is fully secure and customizable. It offers its users two plugin features: the Shop Plugin to hide, which has a store or specific products from the public, and the Us and the Rothe le Field on new user signup or registration form.

Features of WooCommerce Private Store

The WooCommerce Private Shop plugin makes it easy for business owners to make WooCommerce Store private by providing an entire store or specific hidden products. This plugin helps you create a password-protected store, hiding your shop or specific products from non-login users. By installing this powerful plugin, you can force your customers to fill out the registration form first if they want to make any purchase.

It automatically redirects all non-login users for registrations with the user role chosen. Only registered users can access and unlock all customizable options. Only the admin can verify the user account automatically or manually, with full privileges to set the default user status. WooCommerce Private Shop plugin also allows Google to discourage search engines from indexing your private store or site. Once your customers register, this plugin sends automatic emails and helps them stay updated.

Restrict Users to Login First if they want to Purchase Something

With WooCommerce Private Shop, shop admins can disallow users from accessing the entire shop or specific products, forcing them to submit the registration form first and get signed up if they want to make any purchase. If the admin needs to hide a specific product from the non-login user, he can redirect the users to the FULL SHOP HIDDEN page.

Setup and Configuration

After successfully installing and activating the WooCommerce Private Store plugin, go to the WooCommerce dashboard and click on the "Private Store" menu to personalize the setup of the private store feature.

Enable Private Store

Click on the "Enable Private Store" option to allow the WooCommerce Private Store plugin to work on the front end.

·        Privatize the Entire Website

While privatizing the store, you can only hide the entire website or specific products. To conceal your whole website, click "Privatize the Entire Website," forcing guest users to log in or register to view the site and make their purchases.

·        Private Products

If you want to make only your products, select the specific products to privatize.

·        Private Product Categories

You can also choose and privatize the product category page template if you want to hide only some specific product categories.

·        Private Product Tags

Go to the settings and select the specific product tags you want to privatize.

·        Private Pages

If you want to make certain pages private, go to the settings and click on the specific pages you want to privatize.

Allow Users to Select the User Role

WooCommerce Private Shop helps the admin allow new users to choose their roles by redirecting them to the login page and allowing them to select one role from the list of user roles.

Only Specific Products Hidden

With the help of WooCommerce Private Shop, the admin can hide the entire shop or specific products from the registered users. He may allow certain users to access only particular products, not the whole shop.

With Fully Customize Login Page Options

By installing the WooCommerce Private Shop plugin, the admin can change forms, logos, titles, and tags and hide the user role field with options in the back office.

Manually Approved the Registration

As we discussed earlier, with the help of WooCommerce Private Shop, the admin has the privilege to automatically approve registrations using the default approved setting option from the backend or manually send the registration form. The admin can also approve new users manually by sending an email to the user about account verification.

Page Background Settings

The admin can also set the page background. On the registration page, it may be a Video or an Image. This option only works for the custom form type.

With Fully Control Settings Options

Advanced settings options: By installing this plugin, the admin can manage and control all setting options. He may access advanced settings options such as Private Shop Login Enable or Disable, Set Login Area Full/Products, Show/Hide User Registration Form, Hide or Show User Role Field, New User Registration Status (Pending/Approved), Default User Role if not Selected from registration time, and Login Redirect Page Selection

Login & Registration Page Settings Options: WooCommerce Private Shop also helps the store admin access all the Login and Registration Page Settings Options, such as Login Form Title, Signup Form Title, Background Image Upload (Login/Registration Page), Video as Background, Login Form logo, Signup Form logo, and Login/Signup form background opacity.

Email & Google Indexes Settings Options: Additionally, WooCommerce Private Shop can give him access to Email & Google Indexes Settings Options such as Email content on new registration, Email content on registration approval, and All Private plugin to index your site via Google search.

Conclusion

WooCommerce is one of the most popular WordPress plugins, with over 3.5 million worldwide e-commerce websites. One of the most striking features of this plugin is that it helps you create WooCommerce Private stores. Creating a private store on WooCommerce allows you to keep all your products or specific products hidden from the public, allowing only registered users to access your account. If you are running a wholesale store, want to sell your products to specific customers only, want to sell things on occasions, or are relaunching a new product, building a private store on WooCommerce is the best option. In this article, we've shared with you a complete guide to how you can develop and manage your private store on WooCommerce. You can follow this guide and make your WooCommerce private in minutes.