Flash Sales: Time-Boxed Prices That Start and End on Time

Overview

A flash sale takes an amount or a percentage off chosen products for a set window. While it is on, shoppers see the sale price, the regular price struck through, your badge and a live countdown on product listings, the product page and the cart. Checkout charges the sale price only while the sale is on. When the window closes, regular prices return on the minute, including for anyone who still has the page open.

Flash sales are part of the Growth plan and above.

Step 1: Create the sale

Go to Marketing → Flash sales and click New sale.

1. Sale name — for you; shoppers see the badge, not the name.
2. Discount — a percentage off, an amount off each item, or shipping at no charge on orders that include a sale item.
3. Starts / Ends and Time zone — the wall-clock times in your storefront's time zone. A sale that crosses a clock change still starts and ends at the times you typed. A time that does not exist on that date (the hour the clocks jump forward) is refused so you can pick another; during the repeated hour when clocks go back, the first occurrence is used.
4. What is on sale — every product, or chosen products, individual variants and collections. Smart collections count every product that matches their rules at the moment of purchase.

Step 2: Set limits (optional)

• Units available at the sale price — for example, the first 100 units. Every checkout reserves its units the moment the order is placed; when they are gone, shoppers see the regular price again. Two shoppers can never both get the last unit.
• Most one customer can buy at the sale price — counted across all of that customer's orders during the sale.
• For a free shipping sale, these limits count the units shipped free: once they are used up, orders pay the normal shipping charge.
• Let discounts apply on top — off by default: a sale item takes no discount code, automatic promotion, bundle saving or referral reward. Switch it on to let them stack. Either way, a discount never takes an order below zero.

Step 3: Badge and countdown

Type the badge shoppers see (for example "FLASH SALE") and choose whether to show a live countdown. The badge and countdown show only while the sale is on.

What is never on sale

• Gift cards — they are money, not goods.
• Items shipped by your Ghost Search partners — they are priced at your supplier's cost plus your margin.

How the price is decided at checkout

Checkout always works the price out on the server from the sale as it stands at that moment. It never trusts the price shown in a shopper's browser.

• If a line is covered by more than one sale, the lower price wins.
• A buyer with a wholesale price list pays whichever is lower: their contract price or the sale price.
• If the sale ended, sold out or was paused while the shopper was checking out, the order is refused before any money is taken, and the shopper sees the regular price.
• If a shopper's payment does not go through, the units they reserved go back into the sale.
• Refunds do not return units to the sale.

Pausing, editing and deleting

• Pause stops the sale price straight away; Resume brings it back for the rest of the window.
• Edit any detail. A quantity cap cannot be set below what has already sold.
• Delete returns regular prices straight away. Orders already placed keep the price they paid.

Each sale shows its results: orders, units sold at the sale price and what shoppers saved.

Feeds and search engines

While a sale is on, your product page tells search engines the sale price and when it ends. Your Google and Meta product feeds list the sale price with its start and end times (sales starting within the next seven days are included in advance), so those channels switch prices at the right moments. The TikTok feed has no field for start and end times, so it lists the sale price only while the sale is on.

Sales saved before sale pricing

Sales saved before flash sales changed prices show Badge only. They show a badge but change no price. Edit one to switch sale pricing on.