Shopify is one of the best platforms to sell your products and/or services online. Chances are, if you've come across this article, you already know this and you also already have a thriving online business.
If that's the case, well kudos to you! It is difficult to maintain an online business, let alone raking profits every month.
So if you'd like to go on vacation, and have a relaxing time off, we totally understand. In this post, we'll talk about how you can manage a wonderful time off by putting your Shopify store in vacation mode, because you deserve it!
Before we jump in though, some of your fellow Shopify sellers may advise against this decision of putting your store to vacation mode. They fear that you may lose some customers and this might hurt your business. They instead advise to have someone you know and trust to fill in and take care of business while you're away.
If you've already made up your mind on wanting to put a hold on your store while you're relaxing though, continue reading as we'll show you how to do it.
This may come as a surprise but, Shopify does not have a vacation mode. However, before you start panicking, note that it has similar functionalities that'll help you take your mind off of work and relax.
Vacation modes, settings are popular in other online marketplaces like Fiverr. Fiverr is an online marketplace where people can sell and buy digital/online services.
Now this platform has a vacation mode which sellers can enable to indicate to prospective buyers that they're not available at the moment so they can enjoy their off time - whether it's a sabbatical lasting for several months or a quick break for a week or two.
But yours truly Shopify does not provide this functionality. However, it does give you alternatives that just may be good enough.
The first alternative to a vacation mode that Shopify provides is fittingly named the temporary solution.
You may not only be reading this article because you're about to hit the beach, it is possible that you want to put your store on vacation mode because of a plethora of reasons - stock problems, issues and complications could be the reason why you're opting for a halt.
Those reasons may only require you to halt operations temporarily. So how do you go about switching the temporary flip? Easy, you lock your store with a password. Customers who don't have the password can't access your site, view your products or make any purchases.
Sounds like what you need? Here's how you go about creating a password and locking the store using the password: If you're using your PC, head over to the Shopify admin page's online store and select preferences, scroll through that page and you'll find an option that says enable password.
Create a new password that is different from the one you use to access your admin, leave a message to customers who just missed you, click save and voila! You're done.
If you're not in the position to make any sales at the moment, be it because of a vacation you planned for a while back, supply chain issues, stock shortages or other complications that come with being an online seller.
On top of that the temporary solution of locking your store with a password doesn't work for you, then there's a better way! A long term solution Shopify likes to call Pause and Build.
By opting for the Pause and Build setting, you'll stop potential customers visiting your site from making any type of purchase. They (customers) can take a look at your products and brows your stores, but checkout will be disabled.
You'll also be able to not only access admin and edit the store, you can also edit products. However, you won't make any sales. And because you won't be making any sales, Shopify were kind enough to reduce the subscription fee if you decide to enable this setting.
Here's how you do that: you login as an owner, go to settings and select the plans tab, which will take you to another page, select the one that says deactivating store (don't worry, this won't completely annihilate your store from the Shopify universe), and select the Pause and Build plan.
You'll arrive at a page with details that we can't get into here, we advise that you carefully read it and click on switch to Pause and Build and you've finished.
Shopify has detailed instructions and guidelines so read further to know exactly what fits your needs. Using either setting will affect sales so as we've said, many sellers delegate to others so the machine keeps on churning.
That being said, at the end of the day, it is your store and you get to do what you see fit, however, proceeding with reasonable caution is advised.
