Shopify gives merchants a lot of flexibility. But as your store grows, so does the list of manual tasks pulling at your time — including tagging customers, managing inventory, routing orders, notifying teams, and so on. Left unchecked, those manual steps slow down the process and introduce errors.
That’s why automation is essential.
With the right workflows in place, your store becomes more efficient, more accurate, and less reliant on human oversight. You get time back, and your business scales without needing to throw more people at the problem.
So how do you actually create an automation in Shopify? And what tools should you use?
Let’s walk through your options.
Shopify Flow: a starting point for basic automation
If you’re on a paid Shopify plan, you have access to Shopify Flow, a built-in visual tool that lets you create automations using triggers, conditions, and actions. It’s a great way to get started with the basics.
Some common Flow workflows include:
- Tagging a customer after they place a high-value order
- Sending a Slack alert when an item goes out of stock
- Auto-archiving orders flagged as high-risk
It works using a drag-and-drop builder and doesn’t require code. You choose a trigger (like “order created”), define a condition (like “order total > $200”), and add an action (like “add tag to customer”).
It’s clean, approachable, and helpful for automating straightforward scenarios.
But Flow has limitations
While it’s useful, Flow was designed for simpler workflows — and it doesn’t cover every real-world use case.
Some of the most common limitations include:
- Inflexible scheduling: You can’t delay actions or set workflows to run on very specific future times or on a recurring basis
- No direct email actions: You can’t send fully customized emails to customers, vendors, or staff
- Limited looping and logic branching: You can’t run multiple actions for each line item or split logic across complex criteria
If you’re operating at scale — or want to automate more than just basic alerts and tags — you’ll probably hit a wall.
Using advanced workflow apps for more control
To go further, many merchants turn to more advanced automation tools in the Shopify ecosystem. The right Shopify automation tool offers significantly more power and flexibility without requiring custom development.
With a tool like Arigato, you can:
- Schedule workflows to run at specific times or delay actions (like “3 days after fulfillment”)
- Send HTML emails with dynamic content to customers, vendors, or teammates
- Update metafields, sync to external systems, and enrich order, customer, or product data
- Filter and branch logic using multiple conditions, loops, and even custom code
- Track edge cases like fraud risks, shipping delays, loyalty triggers, or fulfillment errors
This makes advanced tools ideal for merchants who want to scale operations without scaling headcount.
When should you consider an advanced Shopify automation tool?
If your current workflows feel like they’re held together by spreadsheets, manual checks, or tagging workarounds, that’s a good sign you’ve outgrown Flow.
Other signs you may need more flexibility:
- You want to send emails with custom formatting or branding
- You want to monitor product-level or variant-level behavior in more detail
- You need to sync Shopify data to tools like Airtable, Trello, Klaviyo, or Slack
- You need to schedule or delay workflows instead of running them immediately
- You want to reuse logic across workflows instead of rebuilding every time
Advanced tools let you automate more of what’s truly unique about your business.
Use templates to get started quickly
The good news? You don’t have to build everything from scratch.
Most automation apps — including Arigato Automation — come with prebuilt templates you can use and customize. These cover common use cases like:
- Tagging VIP customers based on order frequency
- Sending reminder emails for unfulfilled orders
- Notifying your ops team when low-stock items are ordered
- Archiving old blog posts or cleaning up discount logic
- Assigning Trello cards for customer support follow-ups
Apps like Arigato offer a library of 300+ workflow templates, organized by category. You can search by what you’re trying to automate — like fulfillment, customer tagging, order alerts, or product updates — and install a template to modify.
Even if you have a unique use case, starting with a template can give you a foundation to build from.
What to expect when building your first automation
If you’re new to workflow tools, the process usually looks like this:
- Choose your trigger — This might be something like “order created,” “customer updated,” or “product inventory changed.”
- Add filters or conditions — A simple example would be: “only run if customer has tag = wholesale” or “if product quantity is less than 5.”
- Define your actions — These could include sending an email, updating a tag, modifying a metafield, or pushing data to another app.
- Test and preview — Most tools will let you preview how your logic will run using recent store activity.
- Turn it on — Once it’s live, your store will start handling that task automatically — and you’ll never have to think about it again.
Pro tip: start with one workflow, see the value, and then branch out.
Conclusion: automation is how modern stores stay lean
You can’t scale manually — not forever. And you shouldn’t have to.
Shopify automation tools help your store run smarter — tagging customers, routing orders, managing exceptions, and keeping everyone in sync. Shopify Flow gives you a starting point for the basics. But when you’re ready for more — like scheduled emails, metafield sync, or advanced team notifications — tools like Arigato give you the control to build what your store actually needs.
Whether you start from scratch or borrow from a workflow automation template for Shopify, the right automation saves you hours — and helps you grow with less overhead.