I mentioned recently on Twitter (I still find it hard to call it X) that one of the first projects I’ll be working on at Woo is the “Launch Your Store” initiative.
One part of that project is a “Coming Soon” mode built into core. That’s what I’d love your feedback on.
What is “Launch Your Store”?
“Launch Your Store” is the step in the store building process where you, as the store builder, decides “OK, I’m ready to launch this thing and to start making some money“.
Ultimately, it’s the final step in the onboarding task list, and the point at which you click “Launch your store”.
Why Do We Need a “Launch Your Store” Step?
There are numerous reasons for adding a “Launch Your Store” step to WooCommerce.
When creating a store for the first time, there are many hurdles to overcome; adding your products, theming, shipping options, payment methods, and more. As it stands, you have to do all of that while your store is perfectly visible to the prying eyes of the public.
In order to prevent invalid orders or revealing your brand new product line before you’re ready, your store should be hidden from the public until you’re ready to show the world.
On top of that, the “launch” step adds a cognitive point in the process of building your store; you can switch your mindset from “creating/building a store” to “running a store”. This is an important mindset shift which is missing from the current experience.
Enter “Coming Soon” Mode
The fact that there’s going to be a “launch” step, means that there needs to be a period of time before launch where the site is not visible to the public. This is where the “Coming Soon” mode comes into play, and is also why it’d be essential to incorporate into core.
Because WooCommerce is so flexible, there are a number of nuances to consider for a “Coming Soon” mode inside WooCommerce. These are the main two scenarios:
- Scenario 1: You are setting up a brand new WordPress/WooCommerce site.
- Scenario 2: You are adding WooCommerce to an existing WordPress site.
For each of these scenarios, a different type of “Coming Soon” mode is required. Users in Scenario 1 would want to hide the entire website behind a “Coming Soon” landing page. However, users in Scenario 2 would only need the WooCommerce side of things (Shop, Cart, Checkout, Product pages, etc) to be hidden behind a “Coming Soon” page.
As such, we believe the “Coming Soon” mode settings should offer the ability to mask the entire site, or the WooCommerce pages only (there would be some context around what constitutes a WooCommerce page within the settings).
Your Feedback Wanted
With all of that in mind, here’s what we need your feedback on, but bear in mind this is all for the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) of the “Launch Your Store” feature:
- Are we offering enough granularity by offering “Coming Soon” mode for the “Entire site” or “Store pages only”? Should this setting be more flexible?
We’ve toyed with the idea of allowing the store builder to choose specific pages to hide behind a “Coming Soon” page, but have erred on the side of simplicity for MVP. However, do you feel that we should offer more granularity here?
Another thing we’ve considered is for the store builder to be able to progressively reveal more of their store to the public. I.e. Entire site hidden > Woo pages hidden > Woo catalog visible, but checkout/account hidden > Everything visible.
But also, are we offering too much granularity as it is currently proposed?
- Is a “Private” mode required for MVP, or at all? Would you use a staging or development site instead for this?
“Private” would be another visibility setting where you hide all WooCommerce pages and don’t even display a “Coming Soon” page.
I know some store builders would find this useful, but would those people prefer to build on a staging site instead? It feels like there are options available if you don’t want anyone to even know WooCommerce is coming to your website.
Final Thoughts
I appreciate any and all thoughts on this project and what you, as a member of the WooCommerce community, would like to see. I look forward to continuing this discussion in the comments!
One response to “Feedback Wanted: WooCommerce’s New “Coming Soon” Mode”
Hi James,
Thanks for this, it’s great to see these finally being road-mapped considering most competitor platforms have an equivalent of some form.
Feedback to 1 & 2 below.
1. More granularity is essential as without flexible visibility options most will likely stick with custom or 3rd party plugins to achieve. The ability to specify either the entire site or toggle ANY page individually would be amazing especially for custom builds with non-standard woo pages.
2. Private mode definitely as well as an option for HTTP authentication (password protection) for individual page restriction.
I’m regularly adding e-comm functionality to existing sites either as upgrades or as part of a staged launch and while staging sites are part of the workflow, there are some stages of testing that need to happen on the production domain such as onboarding the store account, testing payments, transactional email, external integrations and pretty much anything that requires domain authentication etc.
It would be nice if the pages could be individually sandboxed whilst in this stage of testing with flexible visibility options of either private mode (wp logged in access) or HTTP authentication (password protection) so clients and external parties can review and test the site pages without them being public.
Hope this is helpful.
– John Marrington