How to Activate WooCommerce Catalog Mode

Photo by ijeab On Freepik

It started with a few questions, one of which was, “Can we use WooCommerce to create a product catalog (without adding a cart, price… basically a product gallery)?”

Using WooCommerce for this case is quite helpful – you can take advantage of all built-in features like galleries and single product carousels, image zoom, product description tabs, attributes, categories, tags, and related products.

Next, it’s essentially a much better version than a standard image gallery. This article discusses how to activate WooCommerce Catalog Mode.

Another question was, “Can we disable WooCommerce add to cart/cart/checkout functions until I can sell my products?” This is another common problem that many WooCommerce store owners need to resolve.

Additionally, certain products on your WooCommerce website may be for sale while others may not. Furthermore, you may want to disable the add-to-cart function for specific categories or products.

Finally, you might want to restrict the cart/checkout function to logged-in users only. For example, if you’re running a wholesale business and want to hide your prices from the public. When the “Add to Cart” button is hidden, a contact form may be required – this is what we call a “Product Request” form.

The good news is there are snippets and plugins that make these issues easier to handle, saving your time and simplifying your product management.

If you like to customize by adding code, there’s a simple PHP snippet that can achieve almost everything.

The logic of the problem is very simple: we check if the user is logged in, and if not, we tell WooCommerce to “remove” the add-to-cart button and price anywhere.

This doesn’t hide the Cart and Checkout pages; it applies to all products and might need to be customized if your theme overrides WooCommerce with its own functionality.

The short version of the original snippet code is as follows:

/**
* @snippet Hide Price & Add to Cart for Logged Out Users
* @how-to Get CustomizeWoo.com FREE
* @author Rodolfo Melogli
* @testedwith WooCommerce 4.1
*/

add_action( 'init', 'bbloomer_hide_price_add_cart_not_logged_in' );

function bbloomer_hide_price_add_cart_not_logged_in() {
if ( ! is_user_logged_in() ) {
remove_action( 'woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item', 'woocommerce_template_loop_add_to_cart', 10 );
remove_action( 'woocommerce_single_product_summary', 'woocommerce_template_single_add_to_cart', 30 );
remove_action( 'woocommerce_single_product_summary', 'woocommerce_template_single_price', 10 );
remove_action( 'woocommerce_after_shop_loop_item_title', 'woocommerce_template_loop_price', 10 );
}
}

The “is_user_logged_in” PHP function is helpful here, as some code is executed when the user is not logged in.

This is a good approach, especially if you know PHP, and you can customize it for your specific purpose. Let’s now try using the most reliable plugin to solve this problem.

The great YITH team also has a plugin for this. Some of its features include Bulk Product Edit, Affiliate Program, My Account Customization, Wishlist, Multi-Vendor, Gift Cards, Product Request Plugin, and many other useful functions.

They develop all the most popular WooCommerce plugins, have a great support team, and most of their plugins come with a free version, which is a great way to test the product before making an online purchase.

The “YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode” is a free plugin available on WordPress.org. With this version, you can already achieve a lot, such as hiding the Add to Cart button everywhere on the site and disabling the Cart and Checkout pages.

However, to get more features, YITH also offers a premium plugin version that will help you resolve issues with WooCommerce store features and management.

After trying the free version of YITH, you might love this advanced plugin and its amazing features.

Above the functionality of the free version, YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode Premium also has features like:

• An “exclusion list”, so you can apply catalog mode only to specific lists.
• A way to hide prices (along with the Add to Cart button) for all users or non-logged-in users.
• A way to display a message instead of the price, such as “POA” or “Register to see prices”.
• A “request form”, compatible with Contact Form 7 or Gravity Forms, so users can request information, quotes, or prices directly on the product page.

There is also a premium plugin available on the official WooCommerce.com marketplace. Regarding its features, the WooCommerce Catalog Visibility Options gives you the ability to:

• Hide prices for all users or only registered users.
• Disable the cart/checkout pages.
• Specify an alternative price message when prices are disabled.
• Set an alternative add-to-cart button when disabled.

It seems that the features are fewer than those offered by YITH, but once again, always ask pre-sales support if you have any questions, integration concerns, doubts, or specific ideas. Not all plugins fit everyone.

That’s the article on how to activate WooCommerce Catalog Mode that Mangcoding shared. Feel free to try implementing what Mangcoding explained above in the article. Hopefully, this article is useful and can solve your problems and provide a solution for you.

Reference : How to Activate WooCommerce Catalog Mode