Webinars for Shopify Stores: When They Work, How to Run One
Webinars work for ecommerce lead generation when your product needs explaining before people buy it: equipment with a learning curve, craft supplies, skincare routines, anything where a 30-minute demonstration answers questions a product page can’t. For a Shopify store, the whole path can run on tools you already have: a Shopify Forms registration page that collects marketing consent and tags registrants, a customer segment of those registrants, and a follow-up email with the replay and an offer from Shopify Messaging. The webinar itself runs on separate video software.
The Shopify steps come from the Help Center pages on Shopify Forms and creating forms, read on October 23, 2026. The fit test and the session plan are our opinion.
Is a webinar right for your products?
| Product type | Webinar fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment with setup or technique (espresso machines, sewing machines, cameras) | Strong | Watching it used answers the buying question |
| Supplies for a craft or hobby (yarn, resin, seeds) | Strong | A project from start to finish shows what to buy |
| Routines (skincare, training, nutrition) | Good | The order and amounts matter, and people ask questions live |
| Higher-priced items with a long decision (furniture, mattresses) | Possible | A Q&A session can replace a showroom visit |
| Impulse and gift items (mugs, T-shirts, accessories) | Weak | Nobody needs 30 minutes to decide |
| Commodity items where price decides | Weak | A webinar doesn’t change the comparison |
If your products sit in the first three rows and you can talk about them for half an hour without selling, a webinar is worth a test. If they sit in the last two, your effort goes further on email list growth; see grow your Shopify email list.
Plan the session
- Topic. Name the problem the session solves, such as “Dial in your first espresso in 10 minutes”.
- Length. We’d plan 30 to 45 minutes: 20 to 30 of demonstration, 10 to 15 of questions.
- Demo. Show the product doing the job, mistakes included.
- Offer. One offer at the end, with an end date, sent again in the follow-up email. Create the discount code in Discounts before the session.
- Software. Shopify Forms and Shopify Messaging handle registration and email, and the live session runs on a separate webinar or live-video tool. The steps below keep registrations in Shopify.
Registration on your Shopify store
Shopify Forms is free to install and use, though it isn’t installed by default on any plan. It collects sign-ups into your Shopify customers, can ask for email, SMS or WhatsApp marketing consent, can tag the customers who submit it, and can trigger an automation.
- Install Shopify Forms, go to Apps > Forms, click Create form, choose Inline form, name it (“Espresso webinar Nov 14”) and click Create.
- In the form fields, keep it short: email, first name, and marketing consent for email. A question such as “What’s your machine?” can help you prepare the session.
- In Tags, add a tag such as
webinar-2026-11-14. Every registrant gets it, which is what lets you email them as a group later. - Optional: under Email notifications, select Send an email for each submission to this form if you want to watch registrations come in.
- In Placement, click Create landing page, enter a title and URL such as
/pages/espresso-webinar, and click Save. Shopify creates the page and adds it to Pages. - Preview the form, then turn it on.
Write the date, time zone, length and what people will learn on the page above the form. In the Success settings, tell people the webinar link will come by email and when.
If an existing customer submits the form with a different email or phone number, their customer record keeps the old one, and marketing consent might not update. Test the page with an address that isn’t already a customer.
Follow up with email
Registrants carry your tag, so they form a segment. In Customers, create a segment for customers with the webinar tag, and use it as the audience in Shopify Messaging. Three emails cover it:
- Confirmation, right after registration: the date, time zone and joining link from your webinar tool. A Shopify Flow workflow with a Customer joined segment trigger and the Messaging Send Marketing Email action can send it automatically; otherwise send it as a campaign to the segment each day.
- Reminder, an hour or two before the start, with the joining link again.
- Replay and offer, the day after: the recording link, two or three answers to questions from the session, and the discount code with its end date. Send it to all registrants, since not everyone who registered will attend live.
One catch: Shopify Messaging sends only to customers who accept email marketing, so a registrant who didn’t give consent won’t receive any of these emails. Show the joining link in the form’s Success message as well, or use your webinar tool’s own registration email for the link.
Keep each email under 200 words with at least one link, as Shopify’s writing guidance suggests. For emails that should run by themselves after the webinar, such as a welcome series for new subscribers, see Shopify email automation. More guides on lists and email are in the email and popups hub.
FAQ
What if a registrant doesn’t consent to marketing emails? Shopify Messaging won’t email them, so show the joining link on the form’s success message or send it from your webinar tool.
Can Shopify run the webinar itself? The Shopify tools in this guide, Forms and Messaging, handle registration and email. The live session itself runs on a webinar or live-video tool.
How do I collect webinar registrations on Shopify? Create an inline form in Shopify Forms with a tag for registrants, place it on a landing page created from the form, and add the marketing consent field if you want to email them later.
Should I offer a discount after a webinar? We would offer one, with a firm end date, in the replay email. It gives attendees and those who missed the live session the same reason to act.