How To Unpublish Shopify Store?

Which unpublishing options does Shopify give you?

First of all, as a Shopify store owner, you should check and make sure that you are the admin of your store page. If that is the case then you will have the following choices: 

• Temporarily pause your store and come back to it after a certain period of time. In fact, there are two ways of doing this:

  • Pausing the store for vacation;

  • The “Pause and build a plan” option;

• Closing the store permanently;

• Put up your store for sale on the Exchange Marketplace.

You should note that if you have received Shopify Capital funding then your options of pausing the store may vary a little bit and it would be better to contact Shopify Support for finding the best solution for your specific case.

Now let’s see how each of the above-mentioned options work and how to move forward with them.

How do I unpublish my Shopify site temporarily?

As it was mentioned earlier, there are two ways of pausing Shopify stores temporarily. The first method is commonly used by sellers when they go on a vacation. This way the visitors will temporarily be unable to access your store as the store is password protected. In other words, visitors will need a password to:

1. Access your store website;

2. See products that your store sells;

3. Complete orders from your store items.

Instead, customers who navigate to your website will see a landing page called a password page with a custom theme and message explaining the reason behind the temporary closure. The good thing about this option is that you can limit the access to your store to new clients but let your old customers visit and enter your store through a password.

To activate your password page you should follow these steps:

1. Log in as a Shopify store admin and navigate to Online Store, then Preferences, afterward scroll to find the Password protection section.

2. Click on Enable password and enter the password you want to have for the customers to use. However, you should avoid using your profile password. 

3. Then type in the message you want to share on your landing page in the Message area for your visitors’. You also have the option of leaving this area blank.

4. Finally, click on the Save button.

To add custom themes to your password page you need to:

1. Log in as a Shopify store admin and navigate to Online Store, then Online Store, then Themes.

2. Choose the theme you like and click on Customize.

3. Choose the Password page you created earlier and start clicking on the sections you want to edit (i.e., header, main content, footer).

4. Additionally, you can edit the colors, fonts, and other details from Theme settings.

5. Save the changes and you are ready to go.

The “Pause and Build a Plan” option is the second option for temporarily closing Shopify stores. This plan lets sellers keep their stores accessible for all visitors, however, the checkout functionality is disabled for them.

This way, as a seller, you can keep editing the product lists of your store but the visitors will not be able to shop. If you go with this option, you will also stop paying the 9 USD monthly subscription fee to Shopify. To pause with this option you should go to your admin profile Settings, then Plan page.

How to Unpublish Shopify Store?

If you are a Shopify seller who has decided to permanently close your store then you can simply deactivate it. Once you do this, you will stop having access to your Shopify admin profile. It is important to note that after deactivation you cannot use the exact same myShopify domain in the future to open new stores as those are unique for each one.

If you have made the final decision to unpublish Shopify store, then these are the steps you need to take:

1. Log in as a Shopify store admin and navigate to Settings, then to Plan.

2. Click on Pause, then click on Deactivate store and mention the reason for it.

3. Enter your password to confirm and click on Deactivate now.

Once you take these steps you will receive an email confirmation about the unpublished store. 

Finally, if you want your store to continue the business but do not want to run it yourself, then consider listing it on Shopify’s Exchange Marketplace. Here you can sell your store and not be bothered by it anymore.

Can you unpublish a Shopify theme?

As a Shopify store admin, you can unpublish a Shopify theme. However, it is important to keep in mind that this is a permanent action. If you are interested in unpublishing a Shopify theme and then being able to access it later on, you should download the theme instead. As there is a limitation of setting up to 20 themes for your Shopify store, you might also need to remove some of the themes to add new ones.

Can you reopen the closed Shopify store?

If you have closed your Shopify store with the pause and step away method then reopening is pretty straightforward. You can reopen it by doing the following:

1. Log into your admin profile and navigate to Settings then Plan.

2. Choose the plan you want to move forward with and click on Start plan.

Once you do this you will be able to start selling.