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Use cases
Five stores that need a door
The same handful of parts, arranged differently. Each of these is a real shape of store, not an industry. Find the one that matches how you sell, and the setup underneath it is what to build first.
01
The drop
A dated launch, with VIP early access for the people who earned it and a presale queue behind them. The product page exists, is indexed, and is being looked at for a week before anyone can buy. That is the entire point.
What the visitor sees
The product, the photography, the story. Then a countdown where the price would be, with a field to be told when it opens. Nothing about the page says “come back later” better than a number going down.
How to build it
- One lock over the collection, with a start date
- Price replaced with your own wording; buy button gated
- Waitlist on, so the people who arrive early queue instead of leaving
- Early-access codes for the front of the queue, capped to expire when the drop opens
Why it works: the countdown, the queue and the announcement all run on their own. You are not awake at the launch time issuing anything. The full guide to running a drop covers the four moments in order, including what to do with the people who miss it.
02
The collaboration
You are paying creators, or splitting revenue with them, and the honest question at renewal time is which of them actually brought anybody.
What the visitor sees
A link from someone they follow, which opens your store already unlocked. No code to type, no form, no friction between the recommendation and the product.
How to build it
- One shared code per creator, each carrying its own campaign
- Hand out unlock links instead of codes: one tap, nothing to remember
- Cap each code by uses or date if the collaboration is a window, not a season
- Read the creator scoreboard afterwards
Why it works: every redemption carries the campaign that produced it. You negotiate the next contract against a number instead of a screenshot of someone’s follower count.
03
The trade catalogue
You sell to businesses at prices retail customers must not see, but you still want the catalogue findable. Being found is how new stockists arrive.
What the visitor sees
The full range, photographed and described and indexed by search engines, with “Trade pricing on approval” where every number would be, and a form asking who they are.
How to build it
- One store-wide lock, price hidden and replaced, buy button gated
- Request form asking for company, VAT or registration number, and territory
- Auto-approve rules on the email domains you already trade with
- Approved requests become draft orders you invoice at their agreed pricing
Why it works: a password-protected store is invisible to search. This one is a shop window that quotes on request, and the requests arrive with enough on them to answer. How this compares to running a second store.
04
The membership
Not everyone gets the same store. Some products are open to all, some are members only, and a few are for the people who have been there longest.
What the visitor sees
A store that is mostly open, with a handful of pieces they can see and cannot buy. That is a far better argument for joining than a page describing the benefits of joining.
How to build it
- Access tiers named the way your members already talk about them
- Locks that require a tier and above, so the top tier reaches everything
- Codes that grant a tier, issued when someone joins or renews
- Tier tags feeding Shopify segments and member-only discounts
Why it works: the tier tag lands on the Shopify customer record. The rest of your stack (discounts, segments, Flow, email) can act on membership without integrating with anything.
05
The private sale
Archive stock, a sample sale, an end-of-season clear-out, at prices you do not want sitting next to your full-price range in a search result.
What the visitor sees
Nothing at all, unless they were invited. The invitation is a link in an email that opens the sale already unlocked, and closes on its own when the sale ends.
How to build it
- A lock over the sale collection with both a start and an end date
- Single-use codes, so an invitation forwarded to a group only lets one person in
- Unlock links in your existing email tool, one per recipient
- Interest lists on (the cart’s stand-in on a store nobody can check out of) so the pieces that sell out still tell you what people wanted
Why it works: single-use codes are the difference between a private sale and a public one that took four hours to become public.
Not sure which one you are?
Most stores turn out to be two of these at once: a trade catalogue that also runs drops, or a membership with a private sale twice a year. The parts combine; you do not have to pick.
If you would rather talk it through than guess, tell us how you sell and we will tell you what we would set up, including whether the free plan covers it.
Further reading
The longer version of the problems this page solves, written for the problem instead of for the product, including the places where the answer is not this app.
Running a drop on Shopify
VIP early access, presale waitlists, countdowns and what to do with the people who miss it: the mechanics of a launch that builds a list instead of spending one.
ReadWholesale pricing without a second store
Running a trade catalogue on the same storefront as your retail one: what Shopify gives you, what it does not, and where a gate is the simpler answer.
ReadA members-only store Google can still find
How to build one in six steps, why hiding a shop from everyone also hides it from search, and how to keep the shop window open while the till stays shut.
ReadReady to put a door on it?
Inner Circle installs from the Shopify App Store in a couple of minutes, and nothing on your storefront changes until you turn the app embed on.