For our first-ever feature highlight on the tech side of Lightward, I thought I would write about the “secret link” feature of Locksmith, which I think is one of Locksmith's most versatile features.

To back up a bit, both of Lightward's apps, Locksmith and Mechanic, operate on Shopify, which is a platform for anyone running an online business. Locksmith allows merchants to restrict access to products or pages in their online store. With it, merchants can have granular control over who gets access to those specific pages.

So that's where the “secret link” feature comes in. At its core, it's a very simple feature that allows access to locked content if the page is visited via a secret link. The "secret" part of the link in this case is just a URL parameter that is tacked onto the end of the regular link.

I think when this feature was created, we expected merchants to use it in predictable ways, such as including it in newsletters to grant access to hidden collections or secret discounted products. The fun part has been seeing merchants get creative and come up with ways of using secret links that we didn't necessarily anticipate ourselves, such as including QR codes on fliers or posters that use a Locksmith secret link to automatically unlock the content for anyone using the QR code. Or even using the secret link in ads on other sites that will only unlock the content through the ad. 

The idea of restricting access may seem counterintuitive at first glance, as many business models might want to get as many people as possible onto their store pages. Merchants have a lot of different reasons to restrict access—sometimes it’s as simple as wanting to set aside stock or products meant for specific customers. Sometimes it’s more nuanced, and merchants want to generate buzz and anticipation around a product by making it exclusive, or by adding on a discount that’s only accessed through the secret link before it’s released to the general public.

To me, the secret link feature embodies how Locksmith and Mechanic came into being in the first place. Both apps were created to meet specific needs that were requested by Shopify merchants, to help them succeed with their businesses. And now both apps are constantly being used by merchants in ways that we never expected! Shopify itself has been the fertile ground in which so many entrepreneurs have found success, and it's been truly rewarding to be a part of that in my own small way.