CrowdHandler Waiting Room now available in the Shopify App Store

The CrowdHandler Shopify App is now available in the Shopify App Store. 

It’s a big step up from our Shopify integration, which we launched over a year ago. During that time, the integration has:

• Managed the user experience (UX) for one of Shopify’s top-selling Black Friday “doorbuster sales”. 

• Delivered 3,000 pairs of a legendary shoe to real fans (despite a staggering 11 million bot attempts within just one hour). 

We might be biased, but we believe that it’s the best way for e-commerce businesses to build hype around scarcity, prevent bots from snapping up stock, and ensure a good UX, especially during the holiday sales period… 

…and we think the track record proves it. 

The integration does, however, rely on a lot of moving parts. 

The ecosystem 

The core waiting room and queuing mechanic

When traffic spikes, customers are placed in a queue rather than being met with a slow or crashing site. We’ve seen this smooth-out product drops, letting people move through checkout in a controlled way instead of everyone trying to buy at once. 

Priority codes for pre-sales and loyal customers

Some customers deserve early access—whether they’re VIPs, loyalty program members, or part of a pre-sale campaign. The integration allows stores to issue priority codes for these customers. 

Stock syncing to prevent over-selling

Overselling is one of the biggest worries during high-demand launches. A store might display stock as available, but by the time checkout is completed, the inventory is gone. The integration continuously syncs with Shopify’s inventory system, ensuring that only available stock is sold and preventing unhappy customers. 

Bypass protection to prevent bots from skipping the queue

Bots can ruin drops and prevent real customers from buying stock, and it’s a serious problem in the sneaker scene, or for any product with limited availability and high demand. The integration has several measures that have proven useful in stopping this (read more here). 

Order tracking, refund, and reversal to prevent repeat orders and unauthorised purchases

Sometimes, customers might accidentally (or intentionally) place multiple orders for limited products. In these instances, we have tools that automatically refund and restock orders that have someone found a way to get around the online store and out queue.

The Shopify App

Connecting all of these moving parts requires extensive manual input during the onboarding process to ensure smooth operation. We’ve now combined all of these into a single app that we’ve launched on the Shopify store and available to Standard customers and up. 

Features can then be enabled and disabled from within the Shopify platform. 

All you need to do is:

1. Sign up with CrowdHandler.

2. Install our app in Shopify. 

3. Add your CrowdHandler API keys.

If you haven’t already signed up to Crowdhandler, you can do so for free today.