Unlocking the power of Shopify Flow with DC Order Limits: automate your store’s purchase limits with ease

Unlocking the power of Shopify Flow with DC Order Limits: automate your store’s purchase limits with ease

Running a Shopify store is all about balance—especially when it comes to controlling inventory, managing customer orders, and ensuring that your most popular products are fairly distributed. One of the best ways to get that balance right is by using Shopify Flow in combination with the DC Order Limits app to automate purchase limits.

But this isn’t just about setting basic limits on Shopify cart and checkout. When you start combining Shopify Flow’s automation power with DC Order Limits, you open up a world of possibilities for managing customer purchases creatively—whether it's limiting how often they can buy a product, capping the total value of their orders, or even applying time-based purchase rules.

In this blog, we’ll walk you through how you can use Shopify Flow and DC Order Limits to manage customer purchase limits, using a simple example of limiting a customer from repurchasing a specific product. Then we’ll dive into more creative ways to use these tools to optimize your store’s operations.

Example: how to limit product purchases using Shopify Flow + DC Order Limits

If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide on how to set up purchase limits for specific products using Shopify Flow and DC Order Limits, you can check out this detailed help doc.

This guide walks you through how to automatically tag customers who’ve purchased a product and prevent them from buying it again—all with Shopify Flow and DC Order Limits.

Creative ways to use Shopify Flow + DC Order Limits

While the example above is a basic setup, combining Shopify Flow and DC Order Limits unlocks a lot of creative possibilities for managing customer purchases. Here are a few more advanced ways you can use these tools to create unique, automated purchase rules for your Shopify store:

1. Grouped total limits

Let’s say you want to limit how much a customer can buy from a certain product category rather than individual products. For example, you’re selling skincare products and want to limit customers to purchasing no more than 5 items from your "serums" collection in one order.

Here’s how to set it up:

  • Use Shopify Flow to tag customers based on the products they’ve purchased from a specific collection (like "serums").
  • Then, create a rule in DC Order Limits that sets a cap on the total number of items a customer can purchase from that product group, regardless of the individual SKUs.

This way, you can limit purchases by product category or collection, which helps manage inventory and prevents stockouts across related products.

2. Customer lifetime product limits

Another interesting use case is setting lifetime purchase limits for certain products. For example, maybe you’re running a subscription box or a limited-edition product where customers can only buy once in their lifetime.

You can use Shopify Flow to:

  • Tag customers when they buy that specific product.
  • Then, with DC Order Limits, prevent them from purchasing it again—ever. This can be especially useful for exclusive or collectible items where you want to ensure that one customer doesn’t hoard all the stock.

3. Time-based purchase limits

Want to create a limited-time offer where customers can only buy a product once per week or month? Shopify Flow and DC Order Limits make that easy too.

Here’s how you can set it up:

  • Use Shopify Flow to tag customers when they purchase a product.
  • Then, use a rule in DC Order Limits to restrict them from buying that product again until a certain amount of time has passed.
  • For example, you could set a rule that prevents customers from buying more than one of a specific product in a 30-day period.

This is perfect for managing subscription-type products, flash sales, or preventing customers from over-purchasing during promotional events.

Why this matters

In a fast-paced eCommerce world, automation is key to scaling your business efficiently. With Shopify Flow and DC Order Limits, you can manage customer purchases automatically, ensuring fair distribution of products and preventing over-purchasing or stock hoarding. Whether you’re running special promotions, launching limited-edition products, or simply looking to streamline your operations, combining these tools gives you a flexible and powerful way to enforce purchasing rules—without any manual effort.

By setting up creative rules like product category limits, time-based restrictions, and lifetime product caps, you’re not just protecting your inventory—you’re enhancing your customers’ shopping experience by making sure everyone gets a fair chance to purchase.

If you haven’t already, check out DC Order Limits in the Shopify App Store and start building workflows that make sense for your business. It’s automation that works for you, 24/7.

Install App