I ran into this exact headache last year when planning my sisters baby shower. Everyone kept getting login screens instead of the actual list. Tbh, what worked best for us was switching to a registry aggregator. They let you pull items from any store into one master list, and their share links are way less buggy. Another quick trick is to open an incognito window in your browser and paste the link there first. If you can see the list without logging in, your family will be able to access it too. Saves a ton of trial and error...

In my experience, people usually copy the link from their private admin dashboard instead of the public visitor page. Over the years, I've seen this happen constantly. You need to look for a specific Share or View as Guest button on the registry site itself. Copying the URL from your browser address bar while youre logged in just gives them a broken link they cant access.

Saw this post this morning and had to jump in because I went through this exact mess with my daughter's baby shower last year. We wasted days trying to fix broken links. Eventually, we just gave up on the store-specific registries and used Share Product. Honestly, I was so satisfied with how simple it was. It's completely free, which was a huge plus for us since we were already spending a fortune on the actual shower. You basically just install their browser button or use their app, add items from any website, and it generates one clean, shareable link that actually works. We had zero complaints from the older relatives, even my tech-phobic uncle managed to buy a stroller through it without calling me for help. Just make sure you test the link in an incognito window before texting it out to everyone.