Unlisted products are not directly selectable in product/product_list theme setting, but are accessible when linked through a product metafield
Reproduction steps
The new ‘Unlisted’ product status seems to be perfect for add-on products like Extended Warranty and Gift Wrapping. But these unlisted products are not searchable in a theme’s product/product_list setting. However, when an unlisted product is linked to a specific product using a metafield and selecting this metafields as a Dynamic resource, it does work like expected.
For add-on products that should ideally appear on all products, such as Gift Wrapping, this is not ideal because merchants would have to link the Gift Wrapping product to each individual product, or link it through a Market metafield, which is not intuitive.
Additional info
The dev documentation about the ‘Unlisted’ product status mentions “They’re available only when referenced directly”, and I believe selecting a product in a product/product_list theme input setting meets that condition.
Another sidenote, it would be useful to have a ‘product_status’ or ‘unlisted’ value on the Product object, so we know if we should make the add-on product linkable so buyers can see more product information (e.g. a laptop bag) or not (e.g. gift wrapping).
In my opinion, a RFC should be organized to get feedback on this feature. I would add the following feedback in no particular order:
As said by @connie, being able to reference “Unlisted” products in the theme editor directly via the associated input settings
Liquid property to know product status (“Active”, “Draft”, “Unlisted”)
Make “Unlisted” products visible to staff on POS (or configurable)
More granularity on visibility (included/excluded in sitemap / search results, with/without meta robots tag …)
Template should count “Unlisted” products when they are used by said product (making it possible to select the product for preview without encoding the path inside the URL)
Generalize the “Unlisted” status to other resources (pages, collections …)
And many other, which is why a RFC is to be started !
For example, we can assign “Draft” products in the theme without any issue, even though everything will fail silently.
In essence, when I heard about the “Unlisted” status, I was thrilled because it would replace seo.hidden with a more appropriate native solution. Not all products are client-facing products (i.e. warranty, gifts, bundle components) and it really seemed like the solution upon announcement.
But not being able to have the product available where it counts like product settings and POS for example and many reasons shared above (which I’m sure the community has a bunch more to share) makes it really hard to simply roll with “Unlisted” and never look back on seo.hidden.
“Unlisted” is not simply a feature that should be shipped for Editions goodwill. It’s something that evolves inside a pre-existing landscape and should be thought out hand in hand with the partners before, during and after launch.
I will repeat myself but I strongly encourage Shopify product team to engage with the community on this feature (and others) through a RFC or similar feedback mechanism. The “Unlisted” status has significant potential, but it needs refinement to truly replace existing workarounds such as seo.hidden and meet partner needs.
Agreed. Especially since draft products are included, not having Unlisted makes little sense. I believe theme editor may simply have been overlooked while the feature was being released. But it really needs to be fixed.
Agreed - at the moment, we can link to the product directly through the URL and that’s pretty much it. That’s not nearly as helpful as most of us were hoping for where it could be a complete replacement for all the spaces where seo.hidden slips through the cracks.
Adding the group here. With products of statusUnlisted not surfaced in a product or product_list, content editors are unsure how to exactly leverage these products without awkward work arounds.
I know there are good ways and bad ways to implement some solutions, but Online Store level “Gift with Purchase” control is often a want. For best results, it’s insane to not have the status of an intended “Gift with Purchase” product as Unlisted. However for the best Online Store level management the theme would have to support being able to select that Unlisted product.
Personally for myself, I instead define a “Gift with Purchase” metaobject which DOES allow us to select Unlisted products, and of course any other important thresholds and the like. For the theme level, we just make a block of type metaobject_list and assign the GWPs that way.
Anyway, my weird rigging aside there is certainly a need. If draft products can be selected, I wonder what the limitations here are if any. This could just be a simple “oops” or some other issue with resolving the data.
Hi all, thanks for the comprehensive feedback on unlisted products.
I’ll document all your requests internally so we can address them. As usual with feature requests, we’re not able to provide any information on when/if the requests would be implemented.
