The methods to disable your eCom store vary by degree: some changes are temporary and cosmetic, while some are permanent and irreversible. Choose a method based on your needs.

The following list contains the methods of disabling your eCom store. Select each method for more information.

1. Notifying your customers - You want to announce you are closed for the holidays and delivery of products might take longer than usual. To accomplish this you can create a new headline on your homepage, adjust to your delivery timeframes and change your notification emails.
2. Displaying a demo bar - You want to announce your site is under construction but don't want to hide your eCom store. Customers can still make purchases with this setting enabled. This requires you to enable your demo bar in settings.
3. Preventing customer purchases - You want customers to be able to see your eCom store, but you don't want them to make purchases. This requires you to disable your shopping cart and checkout in settings.
4. Creating a full-page maintenance message - You may be designing your eCom store and would like to prevent your customers from viewing an unfinished website. This requires changes to your custom CSS, translations and activating your demo bar.
5. Disconnecting your domain - You are moving your eCom store to another platform and would like to cancel eCom when the move is complete. This requires domain changes and a call to our billing department.
6. Cancelling your eCom subscription - You want to disable eCom because you no longer have an eCom business and you need to completely remove your online presence.

Notifying your customers

You can use the following methods to notify your customers: 

1. Create a headline stating the reason you're pausing your eCom store, with any other information you require. Most themes display headlines as prominent images on your eCom store's homepage. Remove any other existing headlines to prominently display your message.
2. Adjust your delivery timeframes to reflect the time it will take if a change is required.
3. Make changes to the automatic emails that Lightspeed eCom sends to customers. For example, you could put a mention of the holiday timeframe in the body of your notification emails.

Displaying a demo bar

In order to enable your eCom store's demo bar:

1. In your eCom admin, select Settings > Advanced.
2. In the STORE section, turn on the switch beside Show demo bar.
3. Select Save.

Preventing customer purchases 

In order to prevent customers from purchasing from your eCom store, disable the cart:

1. In your eCom admin, select Checkout > Configuration.
2. In the CART & CHECKOUT PERMISSIONS section, select Disabled from the setting labeled Enable cart and checkout.
3. Select Save.

Creating a full page maintenance message

Create a full page maintenance message by adjusting the demo bar element using CSS. This prevents your customers from seeing and interacting with your website. This does not require you to open your theme's code editor. It is very easy to remove this when you're ready for customers to use your eCom store.

Disconnecting your domain

Disconnecting your domain is one way to temporarily disable your eCom store. However this option should only be considered when you're in the process of switching to a eCom new platform. Otherwise, we recommended a more temporary method to disable your eCom store as explained above.

Disconnecting your domain will disable your eCom store and prevent it from being accessible at your current custom web address. This will negatively affect your search engine ranking and customer experience.

By following these directions, your website will still be available on the webshopapp.com or the shoplightspeed.com web addresses. To remove these too, see Cancelling your eCom subscription.

In order to disconnect your domain, follow these instructions in reverse order:

1. Set your the .webshopapp or .shoplightspeed domain as the default domain.
2. Disable your domain provider's DNS records.
3. Delete the domain from your eCom shop.

Cancelling your eCom subscription

Cancelling your subscription will prevent your customers from viewing your eCom store. Cancelling also prevents you from accessing your eCom admin. Contact us to cancel your subscription.

NOTE: Although we can disable your eCom store's online presence, your subscription may remain active until your expiry date.