# Shopify Flow

> Shopify Flow is Shopify's own automation tool. It watches for something happening in your store and runs an action when it does.

- Source: https://storestandards.com/glossary/shopify-flow/
- Also called: Flow
- Updated: 2026-08-14
- Author: Priya Raghunathan, Founder, engineer, Store Standards

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Free on every plan now, and most stores never open it.

## Stockroom jobs it does well

- Email the buyer when a variant drops below its
  [reorder point](https://storestandards.com/glossary/reorder-point/)
- Tag any product that has not sold in 90 days, so
  [dead stock](https://storestandards.com/glossary/dead-stock/) finds itself
- Alert someone when an order is held for more than two days
- Unpublish a product when stock hits zero at every location

None of these need an app, and all of them are the kind of watching a person
stops doing in week three.

## Trigger, condition, action

Every flow is those three. Something happens, you test whether it matters, you
do one thing about it.

Keep them that small. A flow with nine branches is a program, and nobody will
understand it in six months.

## Where it goes wrong

Two flows fight. One unpublishes a product at zero, another republishes it on
a stock change, and a single sale sets them arguing all afternoon.

The other one is alerts nobody reads. A low stock email on 400 variants is
noise by Wednesday, so set the condition on the lines that matter and let the
rest turn into a [stockout](https://storestandards.com/glossary/stockout/) you can afford. For anything
that needs to reach your own systems, a
[webhook](https://storestandards.com/glossary/webhook/) is the better tool.

## Related terms

- [Webhook](https://storestandards.com/glossary/webhook/): A webhook is a message Shopify sends to an app the moment something happens in your store, so the app does not have to keep asking.
- [Reorder point](https://storestandards.com/glossary/reorder-point/): A reorder point is the stock level that tells you to order more, set so the delivery lands before you run out.
- [Stockout](https://storestandards.com/glossary/stockout/): A stockout is running out of something a customer wanted to buy. The lost sale is usually the smallest part of the cost.