Automating E-commerce: A Step-by-Step Guide to Stripe Triggers

In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, every event matters. A new order, a successful payment, or a customer subscription update—each is a critical signal that demands a response. Handling these events manually is not just slow; it's a recipe for costly errors and missed opportunities. The solution? Event-Driven Automation.

This is where your business logic meets real-time events. By setting up automated workflows that react instantly to specific triggers, you can streamline operations, reduce manual overhead, and create a superior customer experience.

At Triggers.do, we believe in turning these events into actions. Our platform provides a powerful, developer-friendly way to orchestrate complex business workflows. Let's walk through a practical, step-by-step guide on how to automate your e-commerce business using one of the most common payment platforms: Stripe.

LISTEN. FILTER. EXECUTE: The Core of E-commerce Automation

Before diving into the code, it's essential to understand the philosophy behind robust Business Process Automation. It breaks down into three simple steps:

1. LISTEN: Your system must constantly listen for incoming events from various sources. For an e-commerce store, this could be a webhook from Stripe signaling a new order.
2. FILTER: Not every event requires the same action. A $10 order might follow a standard process, while a $1,000 order requires special attention. Powerful filtering allows you to run workflows only when specific conditions are met.
3. EXECUTE: Once an event passes the filter, a predefined workflow or series of actions is launched immediately.

This LISTEN. FILTER. EXECUTE. model is the foundation of the Triggers.do platform.

A Practical Guide: Automating High-Value Orders with a Stripe Trigger

Imagine you want to implement a special process for any new order over $100. This could involve notifying a VIP account manager, applying expedited shipping, and adding a custom note to the packing slip.

With triggers.do, you don't need to build a custom service to handle this. You simply define the logic as code.

The Anatomy of a Trigger

Here is how you would define a workflow trigger on the triggers.do platform to handle this exact scenario. This is "Business-as-Code" in action.

import { Trigger } from 'triggers.do';

const newOrderTrigger = new Trigger({
  name: 'New High-Value Order',
  description: 'Triggers a fulfillment workflow for new orders over $100.',
  event: 'order.created',
  source: 'stripe-webhook',
  filter: {
    condition: 'event.data.amount > 100',
    priority: 'high'
  },
  handler: async (event) => {
    // Initiate the 'order-processing' workflow with event data
    console.log(`Starting workflow for order: ${event.data.orderId}`);
    return {
      workflow: 'order-processing',
      input: event.data
    };
  }
});

Let's break this down:

• name & description: Clear, human-readable labels that explain the trigger's purpose.
• event: This is the specific event we are listening for. Stripe's API sends order.created whenever a new order is successfully placed. You can use any event from any source, including API triggers or messages from a queue.
• source: We specify that this event is coming from a stripe-webhook.
• filter: This is the magic. Instead of processing every single order, this trigger will only fire if the condition event.data.amount > 100 is true. The filter block ensures that your workflows run precisely when needed, saving compute resources and preventing unwanted actions.
• handler: The action to take. When the trigger's conditions are met, the handler function executes. Here, it returns instructions to launch an agentic workflow named order-processing and passes the event's data as input.

Step 1: Configure Your Stripe Webhook

In your Stripe Dashboard, navigate to Developers > Webhooks. Add a new endpoint and point it to the unique URL provided by your triggers.do service. You'll then select the events you want to send, in this case, order.created.

Step 2: Define and Deploy Your Trigger

Write the trigger definition as shown in the code example above and deploy it to the triggers.do platform. Because your business logic is now defined as code, it's version-controllable, testable, and transparent to your entire development team.

Step 3: Connect to a Powerful Workflow

The handler is the bridge to your backend processes. The order-processing workflow it initiates can be a multi-step, complex process involving agentic tasks like:

• Calling your warehouse management API.
• Sending a Slack notification to the fulfillment team.
• Updating your CRM with the high-value customer tag.
• Sending a personalized "thank you" email to the customer.

Triggers.do handles the orchestration, ensuring the workflow runs reliably.

More Than Just Webhooks

A common question is, "How is this different from just pointing a Stripe webhook at my own API endpoint?"

While webhooks are a great starting point, Triggers.do provides a complete event-driven automation platform built around them.

• Advanced Filtering: Simple webhooks deliver everything. Triggers.do lets you cherry-pick the exact events you care about with powerful, easy-to-define rules.
• Orchestration: Receiving an event is easy; acting on it reliably is hard. Triggers.do is built to initiate and manage complex agentic workflows with built-in retry logic, logging, and monitoring.
• Centralized Management: Instead of scattering event-handling logic across multiple microservices, you can manage all your business triggers in one unified, code-based repository.
• Versatility: Today it's a Stripe webhook. Tomorrow it might be an event from Kafka, a scheduled cron job, or a direct API call. Triggers.do provides a consistent pattern for handling all of them.

Get Started with Event-Driven Automation

By leveraging workflow triggers, you can transform your e-commerce operations from reactive to proactive. Processes that once required manual intervention can become fully automated, scalable, and error-free.

Ready to launch any workflow from any event? Business-as-Code starts here. Explore Triggers.do and start turning your business events into automated actions today.