How to run the perfect Shopify flash sale
Got a product that everyone wants?
Our step-by-step guide will help you to plan a no-stress Shopify product drop in advance. You'll have all the tools you need to manage traffic peaks, eliminate overselling, and keep the bots away.
Get ready to run the perfect Shopify flash sale.
Online waiting room for flash sales
When you are expecting a lot of traffic, you need to ensure that your site will not be overwhelmed, and the best way to do this is by offloading excess traffic to an online waiting room.
Not only will a waiting room and queuing system manage your traffic gracefully, it will also allow you to customise the user experience – and demonstrate fairness to your customers – without impacting site performance.
Of course, Shopify has a queuing system. After all, it's the de facto e-commerce platform, used by some of the biggest names around the world, and it has a great reputation for scalability and traffic management. That's why you're using it, right?
But did you know that Shopify's queuing system only kicks in on the checkout page?
This can mean that delighted customers who have added items to their cart can be disappointed to reach checkout and find that, actually, the product has sold out.
A more robust solution, which eliminates the possibility of overselling, is to use an online waiting room specialist with full Shopify integration, such as CrowdHandler.
During your flash sale, CrowdHandler will eliminate overselling and communicate real-time information to your users. It can detect bot traffic and suspicious behaviour, both in the queue and on your site, ensuring fairness for your customers (and a stress-free sale for you).
One week before
1. Install and set up waiting rooms
With CrowdHandler, you can schedule online waiting rooms in advance, to give you a bit of breathing space and testing time. So step one - a week before your Shopify flash sale goes live - is to create a CrowdHandler account. The free trial will be fine to test your setup, but you will need at least the CrowdHandler standard package for a real life drop.
2. Install the CrowdHandler Shopify App
New and improved! CrowdHandler now offers a dedicated Shopify app that streamlines the entire integration process. Instead of manually configuring multiple components, you can now install and configure everything from within your Shopify admin panel.
To install the CrowdHandler Shopify app:
Install the App: Once available in the Shopify App Store, search for "CrowdHandler" and install the app directly to your store. For now, during the review period, contact CrowdHandler support to get early access to the app.
Configure from Shopify Admin: After installation, you'll find the CrowdHandler app in your Shopify admin panel. The app automatically handles all the technical integration and sets optimal defaults including JavaScript integration for user validation, One In One Out and Track Stock Availability settings, session timeout and queue management, and automatic waiting room titles and URL triggers based on your products.
Protect Your Products: Use the app to select which products, variants, or collections you want to protect. Simply click "Setup waiting room" for each item you want to protect, and the app will automatically create and configure waiting rooms for them. Learn more about mapping your products in the CrowdHandler Shopify app.
Enable Key Features: Make sure to activate the essential protection and syncing features: Add CrowdHandler to checkout rules to set up cart validation to prevent unauthorized purchases, and configure anti-cheat and stock syncing to enable bot protection and real-time inventory syncing.
The app completely automates what used to be a complex multi-step manual process, with intelligent defaults that work perfectly for most flash sales.
3. Design a custom template
We know that branding is crucial to Shopify sellers, which is why CrowdHandler allows you to create a custom, on-brand template. Your template can include all of your usual brand colours, fonts and styles, not to mention language and tone.
All the messaging is already set up in the template, but you will want to make it your own, so have fun changing it to match your unique style. Take special care over the stock tracking and sellout messaging – for example, the default stock type is "items", so if you're selling sneakers you'll want your Shopify customers to see that there are only 11 pairs left.
(No time for all that? If you're in a super emergency, just upload your logo. That's the speediest way to get your waiting room on brand if you need it to go live asap.)
One day before
4. Configure your domain
With the CrowdHandler Shopify app, most of your configuration is handled automatically with optimal defaults. However, you can still fine-tune the traffic rate if needed – in other words, how quickly you want to sell out.
The aim of the game here is not to sell out as fast as possible; it's to show that the process is fair. Although a limited-edition product range could be snapped up as soon as the sale goes live, you want people to feel as if they were part of it. You don't want them to believe that bots snatched everything in a split second.
(By the way, if you are worried about bots, the app's anti-cheat protection provides robust bot detection. You can also turn on reCAPTCHA for additional protection.)
As a rule of thumb, if you're selling 1000 items and you want to sell out in five minutes, you want a rate of about 200 (because 1000/5=200).
The app automatically enables One In One Out and Track Stock Availability options with appropriate session timeouts. This means the process is automated based on how much stock you have left, and you will never let more people onto your product pages than you have product to sell.
An example of a Shopify flash sale setup on CrowdHandler
5. Set your drop time and countdown
While the CrowdHandler Shopify app automatically handles most waiting room configuration (including room titles and URL triggers based on your protected products), you'll need to use the main CrowdHandler control panel to schedule your flash sale timing.
Here's where you design the "flash sale experience" timing for your customers:
Schedule your drop time: In the CrowdHandler control panel, set Queue Activates to be the exact time your flash sale goes live.
Set a countdown: Configure the countdown to start 15 to 60 minutes before the drop time – the more dedicated the audience, the longer the countdown should be. This allows CrowdHandler to gather eager users in advance of the sale going live.
The app will have automatically configured your waiting room with an appropriate title and URL triggers based on the products you've selected to protect, so you don't need to worry about those technical details.
Customize your messaging: Use the message field in your waiting room template to communicate specifically about your drop. Since the waiting room instructions are built into the template, focus on getting customers excited about what they're about to buy rather than explaining how queues work.
You can find more detailed instructions about scheduling and customizing waiting rooms here.
On the day
6. Get ready for the big drop!
Are you ready? Is the waiting room open and counting everyone down to your big Shopify flash sale opening?
Now is the time to allocate your product availability on Shopify. Once the countdown is happening, no one's getting access to your product, so there's no chance of an accidental purchase.
This is also the time that you can get excited. During countdown, keep an eye on the CrowdHandler graphs to watch the buildup and see just how many people are getting hyped for your flash sale.
Watching the buildup during the countdown to a Shopify flash sale
If you've underestimated the demand and you want to increase your waiting room capacity, you can always upgrade at this point.
Then, the doors will open and you can watch the orders come flooding in!
7. All done
Once the stock levels reach zero (or demand dies out), it's time to close the sale.
If you have sold out, you don't need to worry about closing the sale manually – as long as you're using One In One Out and Track Stock Availability, CrowdHandler will stop putting people through as soon as the stock level reaches zero. And, as soon as Shopify syncs the zero stock level, it will change the page to a sold-out page.
Now deactivate the waiting room by editing the waiting room and changing the URL trigger to 'disabled'.
Get started today
Expecting a large increase in checkouts? If you're looking to run a smooth flash sale on a Shopify site, CrowdHandler's dedicated Shopify app is the perfect partner – offering seamless integration with automatic configuration, all managed from within your familiar Shopify admin interface.
What's New with the CrowdHandler Shopify App:
One-click installation and automatic waiting room creation
Simple product, variant, and collection protection setup
Built-in anti-cheat protection with multiple defense layers
Automatic order cancellation and refund for bypassed orders
Real-time stock syncing between Shopify and CrowdHandler
Streamlined checkout rule configuration
No manual code editing required
Read more:
CrowdHandler Shopify App - Adding CrowdHandler to Checkout Rules
CrowdHandler Shopify App - Configure Anti Cheat & Stock Syncing
We're excited to see the experiences people build with our new Shopify app integration – making flash sales simpler, safer, and more successful than ever.
Not using CrowdHandler yet? Sign up today and let us handle the traffic while you handle the sales.
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