How To Make Woocommerce Items Coming Soon WordPress

How to Make WooCommerce Items “Coming Soon” in WordPress (Easy Guide for Newbies)

So you’re building your WooCommerce store and you’ve got some awesome products in the pipeline, but they’re not *quite* ready to launch yet. You want to show them off, build anticipation, but prevent customers from actually purchasing them. The answer? Mark them as “Coming Soon”! This article will guide you through the easiest and most effective ways to do just that.

We’ll cover why it’s beneficial and offer a few different methods, including using plugins, so you can choose the one that best fits your needs and comfort level.

Why Use “Coming Soon” for WooCommerce Products?

Think of “Coming Soon” as a digital movie trailer for your products. Here’s why it’s a smart move:

• Build Hype and Anticipation: Showing a sneak peek of upcoming products creates excitement. Imagine you’re launching a new line of organic skincare. Showing beautiful product photos with a “Coming Soon” label gets potential customers curious and eager to buy.
• Gather Email Sign-Ups: Offer visitors a chance to sign up for notifications when the product launches. This is powerful for building your email list and ensuring a strong initial sales push. A simple “Notify me when available!” button can work wonders.
• Control the User Experience: Instead of a frustrating “Out of Stock” message (which might suggest a product is discontinued), “Coming Soon” clearly communicates that the product is on its way and not permanently unavailable.
• Improve SEO (Indirectly): While “Coming Soon” pages don’t directly boost SEO, they can drive early traffic and engagement, which signals to search engines that your website is active and relevant.
• Pre-Sell Ideas: A “Coming Soon” product page can be treated as a soft launch for you to gauge customer interest via comments and suggestions.

Method 1: The Plugin Powerhouse (Recommended)

The easiest and most versatile way to manage “Coming Soon” products in WooCommerce is by using a dedicated plugin. These plugins often offer a range of features, including:

• Easy “Coming Soon” Status Toggle: Quickly enable or disable “Coming Soon” mode for individual products.
• Customizable Message: Change the text displayed instead of the “Add to Cart” button (e.g., “Coming Soon!”, “Notify Me!”, “Pre-order Available Soon”).
• Email Subscription Integration: Seamlessly connect with popular email marketing services like Mailchimp or ConvertKit to collect email addresses.
• Date Specific Release: The ability to make the item available automatically on a specific date.

Here’s an example using the popular plugin “WooCommerce Product Visibility by User Role”: (Note: There are *many* other great plugins available. Search the WordPress plugin repository for “WooCommerce Coming Soon” or “WooCommerce Product Visibility.”)

1. Install and Activate: In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New and search for “WooCommerce Product Visibility by User Role”. Install and activate it.

2. Edit Product: Go to Products and edit the product you want to mark as “Coming Soon”.

3. Product Visibility Setting: Look for product visibility settings. They should be available on the right sidebar or in the product data section (depending on the plugin). The options may vary.

4. Configure “Coming Soon” Options: You might find options to:

• Set the product visibility to hide it from public view, or change its status to “Coming Soon”.
• Customize the button text to “Coming Soon!”.
• Add a notification form or link to a pre-order page.

Why this is a good solution: Plugins provide user-friendly interfaces and avoid the need for coding. They often include features you might not have considered, making them a powerful tool for managing your product catalog.

Method 2: Coding the Solution (For the More Adventurous)

If you’re comfortable with a little bit of code, you can create a custom function to mark products as “Coming Soon.” This is a more advanced approach, but it gives you complete control over the implementation.

Here’s a simplified example:

/**
Modify the Add to Cart button text for "Coming Soon" products.
*/
add_filter( 'woocommerce_product_single_add_to_cart_text', 'coming_soon_button_text' );
add_filter( 'woocommerce_product_add_to_cart_text', 'coming_soon_button_text' );

function coming_soon_button_text( $text ) {

global $product;

// Check if the product has a specific custom field (e.g., _coming_soon = yes)

if ( get_post_meta( $product->get_id(), ‘_coming_soon’, true ) == ‘yes’ ) {

$text = __( ‘Coming Soon!’, ‘woocommerce’ );

}

return $text;

}

/

* Remove the add to cart button when product is coming soon.

*/

add_action( ‘woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item’, ‘remove_add_to_cart_buttons’, 1 );

add_action( ‘woocommerce_single_product_summary’, ‘remove_add_to_cart_buttons’, 1 );

function remove_add_to_cart_buttons() {

global $product;

if ( get_post_meta( $product->get_id(), ‘_coming_soon’, true ) == ‘yes’ ) {

remove_action( ‘woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item’, ‘woocommerce_template_loop_add_to_cart’, 1 );

remove_action( ‘woocommerce_single_product_summary’, ‘woocommerce_template_single_add_to_cart’, 30 );

}

}

Explanation:

1. Add Custom Field: You’ll need to add a custom field (e.g., `_coming_soon`) to your WooCommerce product using a plugin like Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) or Meta Box. Set the value to “yes” for products you want to mark as “Coming Soon”.

2. The Code: This code snippet does the following:

• It checks if the `_coming_soon` custom field is set to “yes”.
• If it is, it changes the “Add to Cart” button text to “Coming Soon!”.
• It removes the add to cart button in the shop listing and in the single product page.

Where to Put the Code: Add this code to your theme’s `functions.php` file (carefully! Incorrect code in `functions.php` can break your site) or, even better, in a custom plugin. Creating a child theme is HIGHLY recommended before making any modifications to your parent theme.

Important Considerations:

• Testing: Always test your code changes in a staging environment before applying them to your live site.
• Backup: Back up your WordPress site before making any code changes.
• Customization: You can customize the code further to add more sophisticated features, such as displaying a countdown timer or an email signup form.

Why this is a good solution (for some): Coding offers maximum flexibility and control. You can tailor the “Coming Soon” functionality to your exact requirements.

Method 3: Setting Stock to Zero

A simple approach, but less elegant, is to set the product stock to zero.

1. Go to Edit product

2. Product data settings to “Inventory”

3. Set “Stock status” to “Out of stock”

Why this is the least recommended method:

• This will display a very default text to “Out of Stock”. This will be confused with a product that already existed.
• This method doesn’t give any option to sign up to a notification.
• This is not as intuitive as other methods