# Pause ordering on your store > Stop taking orders for a holiday, a stock count or a busy week without unpublishing your store. Shoppers can still browse, and your own message tells them why. Guide: https://sitesplaced.com/help/online-stores/pause-ordering · Section: Online Stores · Last reviewed: 2026-09-20 ## What it is **Pause ordering** is one checkbox that stops your store taking new orders while everything else stays up. Your store remains published, your products and prices stay visible, and shoppers can still browse and fill a cart. They just cannot place an order until you switch it back on. Use it for a holiday, a stock count, a week when you are too busy to pack, or any time you would otherwise have to unpublish the store. > **On every plan:** Pausing is not a paid feature. Free, Starter, Growth and AI Co-founder stores can all use it. ## Pause your store 1. Open your store dashboard and go to **Settings**. 2. Open the **Checkout** section, or type “pause” into the **Search settings…** box at the top. **Pause ordering** is the first card. 3. Tick **Pause ordering on my store**. The row turns amber and two boxes appear: **Heading** and **Message shoppers see**. 4. Write your own heading and message, or leave either box empty to use the wording shown in grey. 5. Press **Save** in the bar at the bottom of the page. The block on new orders applies the moment you save. Your message reaches the home, products and cart pages within a few minutes. Individual product pages are stored for speed and can take up to an hour to show the message in the top bar. Nobody can order in the meantime either way. ## What shoppers see - **The store still works.** Shoppers can open every page, search, look at products and add things to their cart. - **The cart shows your message.** In place of the checkout form and the order buttons, the cart page shows a panel with your heading and your message. If you wrote nothing, the heading reads “Ordering is paused” and the message reads “We're not taking orders right now. Please check back soon.” - **The bar at the top of every page carries it too.** Your message takes over the announcement bar, the thin strip across the top of the store, so a shopper learns you are closed before they fill a basket. It replaces your usual announcement, any rotating lines and any scheduled promotion. Your own announcement comes back by itself when you reopen. - **1-click checkout buttons disappear.** If you use Shiprocket checkout or Razorpay Magic Checkout, their buttons are removed from product pages and the cart while you are paused. - **Their basket is kept.** The cart is saved on the shopper's device, so it is still there when you reopen. With the default message the cart says so: “Your cart is saved on this device.” If you wrote your own message, that extra line is left out so shoppers read exactly your words and nothing else. ## What is blocked Every way of placing an order is closed: Direct Order, WhatsApp checkout, Cash on Delivery, bank transfer, online payment through any gateway, and 1-click checkout. The check happens on our server when an order is priced, not only by hiding buttons. So a shopper who left the cart page open from before you paused, and presses the order button now, gets your message instead of an order. > **One exception: a shopper who has already paid:** If someone opened the Razorpay payment window a moment before you paused and then completes the payment, that order **is** recorded. Turning them away would take their money and leave you with no record of it. After you pause, look at your **Orders** tab once in case a last order came through. ## Write your own heading and message The **Heading** can be up to 80 characters and the **Message shoppers see** up to 240. The message is what appears in the top bar, so keep it to one clear sentence. Say when you are back if you know. - A holiday: heading “Back on 5 November”, message “We are closed for Diwali. Orders open again on 5 November.” - A stock count: heading “Back tomorrow”, message “We are counting stock today. Ordering opens again at 10 am tomorrow.” - Sending buyers to WhatsApp: one seller uses the heading “Order on WhatsApp” and a message with their number, so the cart reads as an instruction and not as a closed shop. The heading and message are plain text. A phone number you type is shown as text, not as a button, so write it in full with the country code. If what you really want is for every order to reach you on WhatsApp **and** be saved in your Orders tab, do not pause. Use **WhatsApp is the only way to order** instead, which is explained in [Take orders on WhatsApp](https://sitesplaced.com/help/md/online-stores/whatsapp-ordering.md). ## What pausing does not do - It does **not** unpublish your store. Your link, your Google listing and anything you have shared keep working. - It does **not** touch existing orders. You can still confirm, ship, invoice and cancel them from the **Orders** tab. - It does **not** stop people messaging you. The contact form and the WhatsApp chat bubble still work. On the Vastu Sanctum template with **Take every order on WhatsApp** switched on, the product buttons still open a chat, because those are chats and not orders. - It does **not** reopen by itself. There is no timer or end date. Ordering stays paused until you untick the box and save. ## Start taking orders again Go back to **Settings → Checkout**, untick **Pause ordering on my store** and press **Save**. The cart shows the checkout form again and your normal announcement bar returns. The heading and message you wrote are kept, so they are ready the next time you pause. **Q: Is pausing the same as unpublishing my store?** No. An unpublished store cannot be opened at all, and links to it stop working. A paused store is fully visible and only the ordering is closed. Pausing is the better choice for a short break, because shoppers and Google can still see you. **Q: Can I pause only some products?** No. Pausing closes ordering for the whole store. To stop selling one product, set its stock to zero or archive it from the Products tab. **Q: Can I set a date for ordering to reopen?** No. There is no schedule. Write the date in your message so shoppers know, and untick the box yourself on the day. **Q: I paused but a shopper says they can still see the old top bar.** Some pages are stored for speed, and product pages can take up to an hour to pick up the new bar. The block itself is immediate. If they try to order, the cart shows your message and no order is created. **Q: Will I still get orders I need to deal with?** Only orders placed before you paused, plus the rare case of a shopper who had already opened the payment window and paid. Everything else is refused.