How to Provide Early Access to a New Collection in Shopify
Are you looking to offer your customers special, early access to a new collection in your Shopify store? Maybe you want to create a secret Shopify collection to show a select group of people. In this guide, we'll highlight three different approaches to achieving this, from password-protected pages to tailored email marketing strategies. If you’re not tech savvy or ready to hire a developer, this blog post is for you, as I will walk you through how to create and share a secret collection with your email subscribers.
Approaches to Providing Early Access
Password-Protected Pages:
Create a password-protected page.
Share the password with specific customers, making it accessible via the navigation bar.
Access Control Logic:
Implement access control logic that checks for eligibility when customers log in.
Eligibility can be determined through a secret link, customer tags, or a passcode.
There are two methods to consider: native coding or using an app like Locksmith.
Sharing via Collection Page: (Instructions Below)
Create your collection page and share it with select customers through a button.
Note that this method doesn't control access via login, as anyone with the URL can access the page.
In the instructions below, I will share the steps for setting up a secret collection on your Shopify store that does not require access control.
What is access control?
Access control on a Shopify web page is a way to limit who can see or use certain parts of the website. It's like having a VIP section at an event. To get into the VIP section, you might need a special pass, like a wristband or a ticket with a specific code. In the same way, on a website, access control checks if a person has the right credentials, like a login or a special tag, before allowing them to view or use particular content or features. It's a way to ensure that only authorized people can access sensitive or exclusive information, kind of like having a bouncer at the entrance to the VIP area.
Sophie's Expertise: If you prefer to have access control and need assistance, Sophie can work independently to set this up for you. Please enquire with us for more information on our Shopify Ad Hoc services.
How to share a secret Shopify collection without hiring a developer or requiring your website visitors to login:
I'm going to walk you through how to create the secret Shopify collection, assign specific products to that collection, add this collection link to an email that you send to all of your subscribers, and then have the option to actually take all of those products off that collection and add them to your other collections.
Create your collection:
So to start with, we've got our standard collection; this could be your shop all, all collections, new arrivals, and we want to create a new one; this is your secret VIP collection.
Now we want to ensure that the products that are in this collection have the product vendor VIP, and then we save.
This collection exists on our website, but keep in mind that we haven't linked it within the navigation menu. Nevertheless, it exists within our online store.
Now we want to assign some specific products to our new collection.
We've mentioned that the products can only be shown in this collection if they have the vendor VIP. So let's add that. Let's bulk add a vendor to our chosen products.
You can select them individually, or you can select them all.
Go to bulk edit, click on the first top product, and then press shift and the down arrow. Then you can bulk select all of the vendors, double-click on the top vendor, and type VIP.
And that's going to update all of the vendors that you've selected. Press save. So now all of these products have the vendor VIP.
They'll all be accessible within your VIP access collection.
Ensure products with the vendor VIP, are not visible in any other public collections
Pop into all your other live public collections.
Scroll to conditions and add a condition that states that the products in this collection have a vendor that is not equal to VIP.
Save!
Create an email campaign to send your secret collection to subscribers
Note: You’ll need Shopify Emails installed to carry out the next step. If you haven’t already got it installed, you can find it here in the Shopify App Store for free.
Open Shopify Emails and click New Campaign.
You can send it to all your subscribers or choose a specific segment. Give the email a subject that's catchy and will spark their interest, and then some preview text. You can add blocks and change headings. You can add products and more!
But what we really want to ensure is that this shop VIP button is connected to the right collection. So you're clicking this link, clicking collections, and then you'll choose the VIP access collection that you've just created.
Send a test email to yourself to see how it looks. Make sure to click on the early access button to make sure that you go to the right collection, and then feel free to review that and send that to all of your subscribers when and if you're ready to do so!
What if I want to remove the products from the VIP Collection and add them to the public collection after a certain timeframe?
A use case for this may be that you are providing your newsletter subscribers with 48-hour early access to your new product arrivals. Once that timeframe is up, you’ll want to easily transfer your products into a public ‘New In’ collection.
We're going to go into products. We're going to select all of the products with the VIP vendor, then go to bulk edit.
Click on the top cell under the vendor column, press shift down, select all of them, double-click, and then just backspace. Either leave the vendor empty or replace it with a different vendor—it's up to you!
All these products will now be shown in your other collections.
Lets review the above stepping stones
First step: create your new collection, make sure that you set a condition that the products have to have the vendor VIP, then pop back to your old collections and ensure that they have the condition that the product vendor should not be equal to VIP.
Go to your products, assign the correct vendor depending on what product collection you want them to be visible in. Make sure that when you create your email, the button links to your VIP collection.
When you're ready, come back into your product area and change the vendor back and forth, depending on where you want these products to be seen.
By following these steps, you can grant exclusive early access to your new collection, enhancing your marketing efforts and providing a unique shopping experience for your customers.