How to make your company store private

If you want to prevent non-authorized users from viewing products or placing orders on your company store, you can make the entire site private. This has the effect of forcing users to register for an account, and log in before they can see the website content. You can either automatically approve registered users, or manually.

1. From your Site Manager, go to Settings > General Settings > Users

2. Check the box which reads 'Restrict access to registered users only'.

You will see a drop down menu asking whether you want to manually approve registered users, or automatically give them approval. Select your preferred option.

3. Your site is now private!

Only the overall layout content will be visible, and no links will work until the user is logged in. The home page will look like this:

NB: while you are logged in to the site manager, the website will treat you as a registered user and so it might appear that nothing has changed! Log out of your site manager and you'll see the restricted view new visitors to the site will see.

4. Want to lay out the welcome mat?

You might want to make it more obvious to new visitors to the site what they need to do in order to register. Here's what you need to do. Go into Content > Pages and add a new page.

Call the page whatever you like but it's essential that the Page URL is simply: private

Once you've added the new page, you can Edit layout & contents and personalize this page.

Write in the Text / HTML block some clear instructions on what users need to do to register, and click Save, then Publish.

Again, don't forget to log out of your Site Manager! When you do, you'll see the message you just created on the home page.

Great job! You just made your company store private.