Trade-Only Store Access & Approved Customer Login
The Opportunity
An app that lets merchants restrict access to the storefront, collections, products, or pricing to approved wholesale/trade customers only. Merchants can let the public browse selected pages while hiding prices or buy buttons until registration is approved.
"The merchant needs a simple way to make their Shopify store trade-only, with manual approval and future login access for approved customers, without hiring a developer."
Market Validation
Detailed Analysis
Proposed Solution
Provide gated access controls for pages, products, collections, and prices, plus a registration form, manual approval workflow, customer tagging, automatic login access for approved users, and optional visibility rules for public vs. approved content.
Target Audience
Shopify merchants running wholesale, trade-only, B2B, or members-only storefronts
Competitive Landscape
Locksmith, Locksmith-like access control apps, Wholesale Club, B2B/wholesale gating apps, EasyLockdown
Implementation Notes
Use Shopify customer tags, theme app extensions, and server-side checks to hide prices, products, and add-to-cart actions for non-approved visitors; include a customizable registration form, admin approval queue, email notifications, rule-based access by tag, and optional metafield-driven restrictions for pages, collections, and variant pricing.
Evidence from Merchants
Real quotes from Shopify community forums
"We would like to restrict our shopify online store to trade customers only, and therefore I wanted to create a members only / account log in for the online shop page."
"The store and prices should only be accessible after customers register an account through a registration form."
"Once these forms have been approved, the customers should be able to log in straight away in the future."
Key Pain Points
Need to restrict access to store page and prices to registered customers only.
highMentioned by 1 merchants
Impact: Potential loss of sales from unregistered users accessing prices.
Market Metrics
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