Are you looking for an easy way to control where your WooCommerce products are sold? Maybe you need to restrict sales for tax or shipping reasons, or perhaps you want to create a more personalized experience for customers in different regions.
Fortunately, WooCommerce makes it simple to restrict your products and store to specific countries. In this expert guide, I‘ll show you exactly how to set up WooCommerce country restrictions in a few quick steps, even if you‘re not tech savvy.
But first, let‘s look at why restricting WooCommerce products by country is so beneficial for online stores like yours.
3 Key Reasons to Use WooCommerce Country Restrictions
Limiting the sale of your WooCommerce products to specific countries can help you:
Comply with international trade laws and tax regulations. Some products have restrictions on where they can legally be sold and under what tax laws. Country restrictions let you stay compliant across borders.
Optimize product markets based on demand and logistics. Not every product sells equally worldwide. Restricting low-demand products to your top markets helps you focus inventory and shipping where it counts. According to Digital Commerce 360, ecommerce sales are growing fastest in China, US, UK, Japan and Germany, so those may be smart markets to target.
Create a localized shopping experience. Customers appreciate when a store feels tailored to their needs and location. Hiding unavailable products and highlighting country-specific information improves the shopping experience and builds trust. With country restrictions, you decide exactly what each visitor sees based on where they‘re located.
The best part? WooCommerce offers two easy ways to restrict products by country: one for your whole store and one for specific products. I‘ll walk you through both, so you can pick the best method for your needs.
Method 1: Restrict Your Entire WooCommerce Store to Specific Countries
Want the simplest way to limit your WooCommerce store to certain countries? The built-in WooCommerce settings let you set blanket country restrictions with just a few clicks. Here‘s how:
- In your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce → Settings.
- Open the General tab.
- Scroll to Selling location(s) and choose either:
- Sell to all countries, except for…: Your store will be available everywhere except the countries you select.
- Sell to specific countries only: Your store will only be available in the countries you choose.
- In the Sell to specific countries field, search and select your preferred countries.
- Click Save changes.
The WooCommerce settings for restricting your store to specific countries
That‘s it! With this setting, your entire WooCommerce store will only display to visitors from your allowed countries. All shoppers outside those areas will be blocked from browsing or buying.
When to Restrict Your Entire WooCommerce Store
Restricting your whole store is best when you have broad limitations that affect all your products, like:
- You only have shipping or distribution set up in certain countries
- Your payment processor only supports transactions in specific countries
- All of your products are subject to the same legal regulations or trade restrictions
However, if you need more precise control to restrict just some products or categories, follow the steps in Method 2.
Method 2: Restrict Specific WooCommerce Products by Country
Want to display different products to different countries? You can set up granular country restrictions for each product using the free Country Based Restrictions plugin for WooCommerce. Here‘s how:
Install and activate the plugin from the WordPress plugin directory.
Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Country Based Restrictions.
Choose how you want restricted products to appear:
- Hide completely: Product is invisible in your store to restricted countries
- Hide from catalog: Product doesn‘t appear in shop or search but can be accessed via direct link
- Catalog visible but not purchasable: Product displays normally but can‘t be added to cart
Select Save Changes.
Go to Products → All Products and edit the product you want to restrict.
In the Product data section, open the Inventory tab and choose Country Restrictions.
Set the Restriction rule to "This product cannot be purchased in the following countries."
In Sell to Specific Countries, select all the countries where this product should NOT be available.
Publish or Update the product.
Restricting a WooCommerce product by country with the Country Based Restrictions plugin
Using this plugin, you can flexibly mix and match country restrictions across your whole product catalog. Some products can be available worldwide while others are limited just to certain markets.
Real Examples of WooCommerce Product Restrictions
Let‘s look at a couple examples of how WooCommerce stores can use country restrictions strategically.
Say you run a t-shirt shop and launch a new design for the World Cup. You could use the Country Based Restrictions plugin to show the French version only to customers in France, while offering the Brazilian design to shoppers in Brazil and hiding both from countries not participating.
Or perhaps you sell digital downloads with content licensing that varies by country. Using country restrictions, you can make sure each customer only sees the version that is legal and relevant for their location, creating a cleaner shopping experience.
The possibilities are endless! With WooCommerce country restrictions, you have full control to optimize product offerings for different markets.
Bonus: Using Geotargeting to Boost Conversions and Revenue
Want to take your WooCommerce country targeting even further? In addition to country restrictions, geotargeting is a powerful way to show shoppers more relevant content, leading to more sales and revenue.
With a geotargeting tool like OptinMonster, you can automatically personalize your WooCommerce store based on visitor location. For example, you could:
- Trigger limited-time free shipping offers for high-value markets
- Recommend popular products for each visitor‘s country
- Display country-specific testimonials and trust signals
- Customize overlays and pop-ups with local imagery and language
An example of using OptinMonster‘s geotargeting to show different WooCommerce promotions by country
These targeted campaigns are extremely effective for engaging shoppers. In fact, data from OptinMonster shows geotargeted pop-ups and content can increase sales conversions by as much as 30%.
When you combine geotargeting and country restrictions, you can finetune every part of your WooCommerce store to perfection for each visitor location. The result is a store that feels custom-made for shoppers worldwide while maintaining full control over where you sell.
FAQs on WooCommerce Country Restrictions
Got questions about setting up country restrictions on your WooCommerce store? I‘ve got answers to some of the most common ones.
What happens if a customer tries to order a product that is restricted for their country?
It depends on your restriction settings. If the product is completely hidden, they won‘t be able to find or access the product page at all. If the product is catalog visible but not purchasable, they will see an "unavailable in your country" type error message if they try to add it to cart.
Can I set country restrictions for product variations?
Yes, with the Country Based Restrictions plugin, you can set different country restrictions for each product variation. This is useful if certain variations have different legal or logistical limitations.
Do WooCommerce country restrictions affect shipping zones too?
No, country restrictions only control product visibility and purchasability in your store. You will still need to set up WooCommerce shipping zones to define where you actually ship to and your shipping costs. Country restrictions and shipping zones work hand-in-hand for a complete international setup.
My products are showing as out of stock after setting up country restrictions. Why?
If your products say "out of stock" after applying country restrictions, you likely have a caching plugin that is serving an old version of the page. Clear your WooCommerce cache and it should resolve this display issue.
Wrapping Up
Well there you have it, the complete guide to restricting WooCommerce products by country! Whether you need to limit sales of your entire store or just certain products, WooCommerce has built-in features and free plugins to get the job done quickly.
Setting up country restrictions allows you to stay compliant with international regulations, cater to top markets, and provide a relevant shopping experience to customers worldwide. Pair that with geotargeting and you have an ecommerce powerhouse ready to succeed across borders.
I‘d love to hear how you‘re using WooCommerce country restrictions in your own store. Do you have an innovative use case to share? Any tips for optimizing international sales? Leave a comment below and let‘s discuss!
){kind=link}