If you’re running an international Shopify store, you may want to control how certain products are shown in different countries. For example, hiding prices or restricting product visibility in certain regions can help you manage market-specific strategies, meet local regulations, or handle shipping restrictions.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to achieve this on Shopify, using apps and settings to manage who sees what on your store.
What is Shopify Country Restriction?
The Shopify Country Restriction App allows you to control how products appear with Shopify different products for different countries. With this app, you can set specific options based on your store’s needs, including hiding prices, turning off the “Add to Cart” button, using custom URLs, or displaying text instead of prices.
You can create custom rules for different countries, products, and categories, making your store’s presentation more engaging and targeted for shoppers worldwide.
Features of Shopify Country Restriction
- Set rules for Shopify product availability by country
- Specify restrictions per product, country, and category
- Conceal price, add to buttons or products
- Personalize the appearance of hidden product
- Substitute price & add to cart with custom text or button
Why is Shopify Country Restriction Important?
Shopify’s different products for different countries are essential for any store because they help businesses control where they sell their products and tailor their online experience to specific audiences.
This feature allows store owners to restrict or allow access to certain countries; the following are some points mentioned:
- Focus on areas where customers are more likely to buy.
- Avoid high shipping costs and save it by limiting to regions you can easily serve.
- Stay within legal rules by selling only in compliant countries.
- Increase site performance for customers in target regions.
- Keep your brand presence focused on the areas you choose.
Overall, Shopify Block Countries gives you greater control over your store’s reach, helping you target your audience more effectively while managing costs and compliance.
Why Do Store Owners Need to Hide Prices or Restrict Products by Country?
Here are a few reasons why a store owner might want to hide prices or restrict products using Shopify Block Countries:
- Sometimes, you need to show different prices in different regions. Hiding prices can help manage this so that only customers in selected countries see the prices tailored for them.
- Certain products may have legal restrictions in specific countries, meaning they can’t be sold or shown there. Hiding these items for restricted locations helps you comply with these regulations.
- If a product can’t be shipped to a particular country, hiding it from that country’s customers simplifies management. This way, customers only see items that are available to them.
Pros & Cons of Shopify Country Restrictions
Pros
- Lets you control where customers can buy from, helping you focus on countries with high demand.
- Reduces shipping complications by limiting orders to countries that are easy and affordable to reach.
- Lowers the risk of fraud by blocking certain countries, which protects your store.
- Allows for more targeted marketing, so ads reach people who can actually buy from you.
- Makes customer support easier, especially with fewer time zones or language differences.
Cons
- Limits your potential customer base, which can reduce overall sales.
- Restricts brand reach, making it harder to grow your store internationally.
- Blocks potential buyers from restricted countries who may still be interested in buying.
- Requires setup and maintenance, especially if your business expands to new countries.
- This may lead to wasted ad spending if people in restricted countries see your ads but can’t buy them.
How to Hide Prices and Restrict Products – Complete Guide
Installation
- Head to the Shopify Store and search for the Country Restriction App.
- Simply click on the app.
- Once the installation is completed, the app will automatically be inserted into the Shopify Store.
Embed the Country Restrictions
Once the app is installed, go to Online Store > Themes > Customize > Theme Settings > App Embeds and Enable Country Restriction.
After enabling the Country Restriction App, configure the following customizable setting that helps you to boost conversion:
Configuring Country Restriction Rules
- Rule Title: Set a unique title for the rules to help you identify it later when managing multiple items in the store.
- Country Selection Type
Choose how you want to apply the country-based restriction:
- All Countries: Apply the restriction globally across all countries.
- Including Specific Countries: Select only specific countries where the restriction will apply.
- Excluding Specific Countries: Choose to exclude specific countries from the restriction, making it apply to all others.
- Choose Countries: Based on your earlier selection, you can choose which countries to include or exclude. The app provides a dropdown list of countries. Select the countries to which you want to apply the restriction.
- Product Selection Type:
- All Products: Apply the rule to all products in your store.
- Including Specific Products: Choose only certain products where the restriction will apply.
- Excluding Specific Products: Exclude specific products from the restriction, making the rule apply to all others.
- Choose Products: You can manually select the products that will be affected by the rule or select the entire collection if you want to apply the rule to multiple products at once.
- Choose Product Collections: You can also apply the rule to specific product collections. Simply select the collection you wish to restrict.
Restriction Settings
Now that you’ve selected the countries and products for the restriction, it’s time to define what happens when customers from the selected regions try to access the restricted products.
- Restriction Type: Choose from the following restriction actions:
- Hide Selected Products: The selected products will be hidden from customers in the restricted countries.
- Hide Price and “Add to Cart” Button: For the restricted products, hide the price and “Add to Cart” button but still show the product.
- Restriction Action: You can apply an additional action when a restricted product is viewed:
- Show Restriction Message: Display a custom message informing the customer that the product is not available in their country.
- Redirect to URL: Redirect customers to a different page, such as a page explaining the restriction or offering an alternative product.
- Restriction Message: If you choose to show a restriction message, input the message you want customers to see, such as “This product is not available in your country.”
- Redirect URL: If you prefer to redirect customers to another URL when they try to view the restricted product, enter the URL here. For example, you could redirect to a page offering a similar product that’s available in their region.
Listing Page Settings
On the listing pages, you can control how restricted products appear to customers:
Product Visibility on the Listing Page:
- Keep Visible
- Remove Products
- Blur Product Block
- Remove the Product image with the custom image.
Hide Price: You can choose to hide the price for restricted products on the listing page, signaling to the customer that the product is unavailable. It offers options like
- Hide price
- Keep Visible
- Replace with text
Hide the “Add to Cart” Button: You can also hide the “Add to Cart” button for restricted products, preventing customers from attempting to purchase them. If it offers options like:
- Keep Visible
- Hide Add to Cart Button
- Replace with text
- Replace with button
Conclusion
The Shopify Country Restriction feature is a powerful tool for managing your product availability based on geographic locations. By following the steps above, you can easily create custom rules to control which products customers in specific countries can view or purchase. This helps improve the customer experience by offering region-specific options and ensuring that customers are only shown products available in their location.
