Flow vs Scripts
Shopify Flow handles business logic and data operations: tagging, notifications, metafield updates, and conditional routing. Shopify Scripts handle checkout modifications: price changes, shipping filtering, payment method control. They serve different purposes and are often used together.
Use Flow for operational automation. Use Functions or Scripts for checkout rules.
High-Value Customer Workflows
Build a comprehensive high-value customer flow: trigger on customer lifetime value reaching a threshold (e.g., £500 total spend). Actions: add the VIP tag, send an internal notification to your CRM team, trigger a personalised email via a webhook to Klaviyo, and update a customer metafield with their tier.
This single workflow replaces what would otherwise be a daily manual review of customer data.
Risk Management Flows
Fraud prevention flows are among the most valuable Plus automations. Create a flow that triggers on order creation, checks the Shopify fraud analysis level, and for high-risk orders: adds an investigate tag, sends an internal Slack message, and holds fulfilment.
Inventory Alerts
Build multi-threshold inventory alert flows: below 20 units triggers a low-stock notification to your buying team, below 5 units triggers an urgent alert, reaching 0 triggers an automatic product unpublish and a notification to your web team.
B2B Automations
Flow integrates with Shopify B2B on Plus. Build automations that trigger when a company applies for a trade account, update company metafields when purchase thresholds are reached, or notify account managers when a key account places an unusual order.
Custom Triggers
Flow's Run Code step (available on Plus) allows you to execute custom JavaScript within a flow, accessing external APIs and performing complex data transformations not possible with standard flow actions.
Debugging Flows
Use Flow's activity log to review which runs succeeded and which failed. Failed runs show the exact step and error message. Common failures: null reference errors, API timeout errors, and condition errors where logic does not match the expected data type.
