--- title: "Running a private sample sale on Shopify | Inner Circle" description: "Invitation-only, time-boxed, or both: single-use codes that survive being forwarded, and why the sale collection is the one thing worth hiding outright." source: https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/guides/running-a-private-sample-sale/ --- [Home](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/) [Guides](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/guides/) Running a private sample sale on Shopify # Running a private sample sale on Shopify Invitation-only, time-boxed, or both: single-use codes that survive being forwarded, and why the sale collection is the one thing worth hiding outright. By [Monochrome](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/about/) ยท Last updated 14 August 2026 ## On this page 1. [What "private" has to mean here](#what-private-has-to-mean-here) 2. [The mistake that makes it public](#the-mistake-that-makes-it-public) 3. [Should the sale collection be indexed?](#should-the-sale-collection-be-indexed) 4. [Building it](#building-it) 5. [What happens afterwards](#what-happens-afterwards) 6. [The other shape this can take](#the-other-shape-this-can-take) 7. [What this costs](#what-this-costs) A sample sale has a problem the rest of your shop does not: the prices are the point, and the prices are also the thing you least want indexed next to your full-price range. Discount the archive publicly for a weekend and you have taught every future customer what your work is worth when you are in a hurry. Run it privately and badly, and the link is on a deals forum by lunchtime. This is how to run one that stays private and still ends. ## What "private" has to mean here Three different things get called a private sale, and they need different builds: - **Invitation-only.** A named list: past customers, a mailing list segment, the people who came last time. Nobody else gets in, ever. - **Time-boxed but open.** Anyone can buy, but only for six hours. The scarcity is the clock, not the guest list. - **Both.** Invited people, for a fixed window, which is what most sample sales actually are. Decide which before you build anything. The third is the only one where you need both a door and a timer, and the first two are considerably less work. ## The mistake that makes it public The most common failure is not technical. It is a single shared code, emailed to four thousand people. One person forwards it. One person posts it. Within a few hours the code is on a voucher site, and your invitation-only sale is a public one with an unusually inconvenient entry step. Nobody did anything malicious; a shared secret given to four thousand people is not a secret, it is an announcement with a delay. The fix is **single-use codes**: one per recipient, dead the moment it is redeemed. A forwarded invitation then lets exactly one extra person in, once, which is a rounding error rather than a leak. ![The "What kind of code?" step in the Shopify admin, offering Shared, Single use and Limited, each with a sentence on when to use it, and a summary reading "Shared, 1 code".](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/admin-code.jpg) Choosing what a code does. The type decides how long it keeps working. Shared is the one to avoid for an invitation list. It is the right choice when you *want* an audience to pass something around, like a creator's link or a code read out on a podcast, and the wrong one every time the guest list is the point. If your email tool can do a per-recipient merge field, and most can, the distribution problem is already solved. Generate the codes, upload them as a column, send. ## Should the sale collection be indexed? This is where a sample sale genuinely differs from the rest of the advice on this site, and it is worth being straight about it. Most of the time the argument here is: keep the catalogue public and indexable, put the wall at the till, let strangers browse and want things. For a permanent private range or a members' club, that is right. For a sample sale it often is not. If the sale collection is indexed, then "\[your brand\] sample sale" becomes a search result that outlives the sale, and the archive prices sit in Google's memory next to your full-price pages. You usually want the *products* indexed at full price on their normal pages, and the *sale* to leave no permanent trace. So: hide the sale collection outright rather than gating it. This is the one case where the password-page instinct is closer to correct. Not for the whole store, just for that collection. ## Building it **A lock over the sale collection with a start and an end date.** Both dates, not just the start. The end date is what stops the sale quietly continuing for anyone who kept a tab open, and it means you are not relying on remembering to switch something off at 11pm on a Sunday. **Single-use codes, one per invitee.** As above. Cap them by date as well if the sale is a window rather than an event. **Unlock links rather than codes to type.** A link that opens the sale already unlocked converts better than a code, because every step between the email and the product costs you people. On a phone, "tap this" beats "copy this, find the box, paste it" by a wide margin. **Interest lists on.** This is the part people skip and regret. Half the value of a sample sale is finding out what people wanted and could not get: the sizes that went first, the pieces that everyone tried to buy at once. On a store where nobody can check out yet, an interest list is the cart's stand-in, and what accumulates in it is the most honest demand data you will get all year. Nobody joining a list is being polite. **A plan for the overflow.** People will arrive after it closes, because the email will be forwarded and the link will be shared. Decide now whether that is a waitlist for next time or a plain "this has ended". Either is fine, but the default of a dead page is a wasted visit. ## What happens afterwards The sale ends and the lock lifts or the collection comes down. Two things worth doing in the week after, while anyone still cares: **Read what was asked for, not just what sold.** Sales tell you what was available. Interest lists tell you what was wanted, which is the number that should inform what you make next. **Keep the list.** Everyone who redeemed a code is a person who buys from you at a discount and turned up when invited. That is a segment, and the next sale can start with it rather than with a fresh campaign. ## The other shape this can take Everything above assumes the sale happens on the store you already have, with the buying gated. There is a second arrangement, and for some brands it is the better one: run the invite-only sale as a separate capsule storefront on its own URL, so the sale is a different place rather than a different state of the same place. That is what [Atelier](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/compare/atelier/) does, and it is a real answer rather than a worse version of this one. If the sample sale is meant to look and feel separate from the main brand, separation as architecture beats separation as a setting, and no lock will give it to you. The trade is that a capsule store starts from nothing every time: no rankings, no history, no accumulated links, and the invitation has to carry all the traffic. Gating the store you already have keeps the product pages that already rank. Which matters more depends on whether the sale is meant to be found or meant to be sent. Worth knowing before you compare prices: Atelier's plans are a monthly fee plus 0.69% to 0.99% of what the sale takes, so on a $50,000 sale that is $345 to $495 on top. Ours is flat, with no share of sales at any volume. Below a certain turnover theirs works out cheaper, and the crossover is arithmetic rather than opinion. ## What this costs Scheduled locks with start and end dates, single-use codes, unlock links, interest lists and the waitlist are all on every plan of [Inner Circle](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/pricing/), including the free one. The free plan's limit is one lock and five codes, which is enough to test the shape but not to invite a list. Turning interest lists into priced draft orders, and the demand report that shows what piled up in them, are on Starter. If your sale is a handful of people you already know, you may not need any of this: tag their accounts, hide the collection from everyone else, and send an email. The tooling starts paying when the invitation list is longer than your patience for doing it by hand. ## Read next [Running a drop on Shopify](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/guides/running-a-drop-on-shopify/) [Influencer campaigns on Shopify, and knowing which one worked](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/guides/influencer-campaigns-on-shopify/) [A members-only store Google can still find](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/guides/members-only-store-google-can-find/) ## Inner Circle gates prices and buy buttons for you It does the gating described above without a theme rebuild or a second store. The free plan is one lock and five codes, with no time limit and no card. [Install on Shopify](https://apps.shopify.com/inner-circle) [Watch it work first](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/tutorial/) [Ask whether it fits your store](https://innercircle.monochrome.digital/contact/)