Creating A Hidden Product

Hi guys

I'm assuming this is the right place to post this question. I'm fairly new to the whole zen cart experience, and one thing is stumping me.

Is there a way of creating a product that is only accessible via a link. I want to create a product at a discounted price just for certain customers on our mailing list.

The only way I could think about doing this was creating a new product, and being able to 'hide' it from the website, so the general public could not view it, but the customers on our mailing list could click a link to take them straight to it.

I hope this all makes sense! :D

Cheers

Paul

Put the product in its own category, and hide that with the Hide Category mod in Downloads (see the support thread for discussion of use).

Link to hideCategories mod talked about above.
http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&products_id=391

Does this add-on still work? I'm using Zen Cart 1.3.8a. I followed the installation instructions and the add-on operates as described in the readme.txt file, but the hidden category still shows on my store page, in my category list and the "hidden" products still show in the new products list.

I tried selecting "Hidden from Main Menus" and "Hidden (direct link only)". Neither seems to have any effect.

Any ideas on what I may be doing wrong?

What version of MySQL are you using? And what did you actually do?

(Most times that a mod doesn't work it's because somebody has misunderstood the instructions and missed something, or done something extra that wasn't intended - not always the fault of the installer, sometimes the instructions aren't clear - so we need to know what you actually did to be able to help)

Sorry - should have been more specific.

I am running:
ZenCart 1.3.8a
MySQL 5.0.67
PHP 4.4.9

I followed the instructions to install the add-on. That went smoothly.

I added a new category (Tiffany Room) and two new products. I then went back and edited the Tiffany Room category and chose "Hidden (direct link only)". I saved the settings and viewed my site. The category still appears in the category list. The two products in the "hidden" category still appear in the new products and all products listings.

Here's the site: http://kellystavernjerseyshore.com/merchandise (The Tiffany Room category should be hidden and the two Tiffany Room Reservation Charges should be hidden as well).

What did I do wrong?

Doh!

I just went back and noticed that it is not compatible with MySQL 5.

Is there another solution that works with MySQL 5?

:frusty:

The simplest way to create a hidden product is to firstly create a unique category, call this HIDDEN CATEGORY. Then disable the category from admin so it's showing the red square.

Then, click into the category and create the products you want to hide. You can still access and purchase these products if you know the URL. No one browsing your store will be able to access these products as they don't know the URL's.

Simple as that really. Works a treat for me.

Hello,

Awesome tip limelites!!! Saved me the trouble of having to install and merge the HideCategories mod.
But do you think this will affect SEO?

Thanks

Same here, limelites - thanks a million! Sometimes easy solutions really can be found.

I set this up and the products still show up in the new products and customers who bought this also purchased... areas. Any thoughts on that?

limelites:

The simplest way to create a hidden product is to firstly create a unique category, call this HIDDEN CATEGORY. Then disable the category from admin so it's showing the red square.

Then, click into the category and create the products you want to hide. You can still access and purchase these products if you know the URL. No one browsing your store will be able to access these products as they don't know the URL's.

Simple as that really. Works a treat for me.

Yes this method kind of works, but not really. The product in the hidden category does stil show up in all products, new products, etc.

does anyone know of a way around this?