How to use Shopify Flow: What it is, workflows and examples

What is Shopify Flow?

Shopify Flow is Shopify's free automation engine. It used to be Plus-only, but it's now available on every Shopify plan from Basic upwards. The app runs on a simple model:

• A trigger fires (eg. an order is placed, a product is updated, a customer is created);
• Flow checks a condition (eg. was the order over £200? is the customer new?);
• It takes an action (eg. tag them, email them, alert your team).

You build workflows visually, no code required.

Once the workflows are live, they run themselves in the background. The real question isn't whether to use Shopify Flow or not, it's what to build first.

12 Shopify Flow examples

Customer tagging and segmentation

Tag VIP customers automatically

• Trigger: Order created
• Condition: Customer lifetime spend goes above £500
• Action: Tag the customer as "VIP"
• The benefit: Your best customers get spotted and rewarded the moment they qualify

Tag first-time buyers separately to repeat customers

• Trigger: Order created
• Condition: Customer order count = 1 (or greater than 1)
• Action: Apply "first-time-buyer" or "repeat-customer" tag
• The benefit: Lets your email platform send the right flow without manual segmenting

Tag customers by product category

• Trigger: Order created
• Condition: Order contains a product from a specific collection
• Action: Tag the customer with the matching category (eg. "skincare-buyer")
• The benefit: Foundation for any decent post-purchase marketing

Inventory and product management

Hide out-of-stock products from your storefront

• Trigger: Inventory quantity changes
• Condition: Quantity = 0
• Action: Unpublish the product or move it to a "sold out" collection
• The benefit: Stops customers landing on empty product pages

Alert your buying team when stock runs low

• Trigger: Inventory quantity changes
• Condition: Quantity below your reorder threshold
• Action: Send a Slack message or email to the buying team
• The benefit: No more selling out of bestsellers because no one was watching

Republish products when stock returns

• Trigger: Inventory quantity changes
• Condition: Quantity goes above zero
• Action: Republish the product and trigger back-in-stock emails
• The benefit: Recovers demand that built up while the product was unavailable

Order management and fraud prevention

Hold high-risk orders before they ship

• Trigger: Order created
• Condition: Shopify risk score = high
• Action: Cancel the order or apply a "review" tag to pause fulfilment
• The benefit: Saves chargebacks and stops fraudulent orders going out

Flag high-value orders for manual review

• Trigger: Order created
• Condition: Order total above a set threshold
• Action: Send a Slack alert to your ops team
• The benefit: Lets you check shipping, payment, and stock before anything expensive ships

Route wholesale orders down a separate path

• Trigger: Order created
• Condition: Customer has a "wholesale" tag or order contains a B2B-only product
• Action: Tag the order, route to a different fulfilment partner, trigger a confirmation email
• The benefit: IKeeps DTC and wholesale cleanly separated without running two stores

Marketing and customer service

Trigger win-back flows for lapsed customers

• Trigger: Scheduled (daily check)
• Condition: Customer hasn't ordered in 90 days
• Action: Apply "lapsed" tag, which fires a re-engagement campaign in your email platform
• The benefit: Catches customers before they forget you exist

Send post-purchase review requests at the right time

• Trigger: Order fulfilled
• Condition: Wait 14 days
• Action: Send a review request email
• The benefit: Better timing means better response rates than asking the moment it ships

Reward customers on their order anniversary

• Trigger: Scheduled (daily check)
• Condition: 365 days since customer's first order
• Action: Tag the customer and trigger a thank-you discount email
• The benefit: Small touch with a measurable impact on repeat purchase rates

How to use Shopify Flow without overcomplicating it

The biggest mistake you can make with Shopify Flow is trying to automate everything in week one. Start with a single workflow. Build it, test it properly, and leave it running for a week before you touch anything else. Once you trust it, move on to the next.

Before you build anything from scratch, check the pre-built templates in Flow. Shopify ships dozens of them covering the most common automations, and most people find what they need without writing a workflow from zero.

The real power comes when you connect Flow to the rest of your stack. Klaviyo, Slack, Google Sheets, and most major Shopify apps have Flow connectors built in. That's where simple tagging workflows turn into proper cross-platform automations.

Lastly, document what each workflow does. Six months in, no one remembers why a customer tag exists or what fires it. Give every workflow a clear name and a short description so the next person who touches it knows what they're looking at.

In fact, there's even a template to tell you when a workflow fails! This is part of our standard process, especially for 3rd party integrations. A flow can fail, not necessarily on Shopify's side, but sometimes on the other side. Klaviyo might be down, a Google Sheet might have moved, or an ERP endpoint might have changed without anyone telling you.

How to setup this flow:

• Open Shopify Flow and go to the Templates tab
• Search for "workflow run fails"
• Install the template and set the action to send an alert
• Save, activate, and you're done

Build your Shopify Flow workflows with us

Most Shopify stores barely scratch the surface of what Shopify Flow can do.

The templates can get you started, but the real wins come from workflows built around how your business operates. Custom workflows can handle your specific fulfilment process, route your wholesale orders to 3rd party suppliers, or flag the specific orders.

We've built Shopify Flow automations for B2B brands, high-volume DTC stores, and complex multi-region operations. From simple customer tagging to multi-step workflows connecting Shopify, ERPs, and fulfilment partners.

And because workflows need maintaining as your store and integrations evolve, our Shopify support plans cover monitoring, fixes, and new workflow builds on an ongoing basis. Book a call and we'll walk through where the biggest time savings are hiding.