Did you know that Shopify supports pre orders?
If you’re looking for various ways to offer products to your customers, accepting pre order customers is a great technique to maintain a positive cash flow for your Shopify store. Selling pre orders offers unique advantages, which you will discover in this guide.
Throughout my ecommerce experience, I’ve seen various selling strategies employed by store owners, including myself. From selling digital products to offering limited-time discounts, the more reasons you give a customer to buy your product, the better it is for your sales performance.
Selling a preorder has a unique element that any savvy Shopify merchant must learn to take advantage of. By the end of this guide, you will be more confident about how to sell pre orders on Shopify.
Key Takeaways
- A preorder allows your customers to purchase a product when it is out of stock or before its release.
- A good example of a pre order strategy involves creating a sense of urgency or having a limited offer discount to entice customers to pay for the product now and receive the item at a later date.
- The most common pre order methods include the Pay Now or Pay Later scheme.
- Pre ordering offers many benefits, such as improving sales, fostering customer loyalty, and forecasting product demand.
What is a Pre Order?
A preorder product is any item offered to customers before the final product is available or restocked. For example, you have a product lineup that is sold out, but customers are interested in buying the product.
The solution is to sell preorders to customers, waiting until new products become available. It serves as their reservation to ensure they are among the customers who will have access to the product as soon as it becomes available.
There are various ways to handle preorders in your Shopify store. Depending on the demand for your product, you can accept partial or complete payments to sell preorders online.
If you require a deposit, it’s essential to access your customer’s method of payment to secure the remainder of the payment once the product is in stock.
Why It Makes Sense to Sell Pre Orders on Shopify?
Selling products on Shopify is risky, especially if you make your own products. Consider the resources, materials, skills, and time that go into creating a single product.
Each element entails cost, which adds up the higher the number of products you must produce. Product creation and inventory must be executed correctly to maintain cash flow in your business.
Selling preorders is a notable strategy that facilitates product validation. Your preorder customers are telling you that you’ve got a good product worth buying since they are willing to pay for it even before they can access the physical product!
Therefore, you must consider selling pre orders in your business for the following reasons.
Boost Sales
Any marketing strategy for your ecommerce store should have one main goal: to get more sales.
You can achieve this with a well-executed pre orders strategy on your Shopify store. With high competition in the ecommerce landscape, you should never miss out on any opportunity to make more sales.
When you offer pre-orders to your customers, you secure that you would have otherwise missed if you didn’t have the Shopify pre-order functionality on your website.
When a particular product that a customer wants goes out of stock, in most cases, they don’t have any other option to buy that product. The solution is to look for a similar product in another store.
Pre-orders enable you to overcome the challenges of having out-of-stock products in your business. Pre-ordering allows your customers to lock in the sales even when that product is currently out of stock. You never have to say ‘no’ to a customer again.
Even if your product is out of stock or not ready for them, you can capitalize on their willingness to buy it now and ask them to wait for the physical product to arrive.
Cash Flow Benefits
Another unique advantage of using preordering as a business strategy is that you have the flexibility to maintain your business cash flow. You can accept a partial deposit or full payment from your preorder customers.
There is an option to accept payments upfront or when the item ships.
This makes it easy to predict the amount of cash that flows into your business while ensuring you can adapt your marketing strategy according to the demand for a specific product that is on preorder.
Forecast Demand
As mentioned, preordering is an excellent strategy to validate product demand. Depending on the number of preorders you get for a certain product at any given time, you can forecast the demand for that product.
It enables you to foresee how much you should stock for a particular product so you will never run out of stock.
While pre-orders are suitable for your business, keeping an eye on your stock levels is still essential to ensure you always have the most in-demand products.
With the rising supply chain issues since the pandemic, being able to fine-tune your strategy in predicting your required stock levels will help overcome any hurdles.
After all, not all customers are willing to make a pre order as it involves a lot of risk, so having products on hand is still your best bet to boost sales.
Build Excitement and Customer Loyalty
Nowadays, so much competition in the ecommerce industry becomes more and more difficult for an online business to stand out. When you set up pre orders in your store, it helps to build up excitement among your customers.
Pre-orders give customers the thrill of anticipating a functionality and getting their hands on it. At the same time, customers who are invested in that product are thankful to merchants for the opportunity to secure their purchase of a product that is in high demand.
You can leverage the anticipation toward your preorder product to validate your customer to pay for the preorder. If you properly execute your preorder strategy, you can build a sense of loyalty among customers.
Most appreciate the opportunity to preorder a new product before release or to access a specific product even if it goes out of stock.
One way to maximize the thrill that preorders offer your customers is to send pre order information to the people on your mailing list. Therefore, they can experience a sense of exclusivity in terms of being offered the preorder product. These offers show your customers that you understand what they want to buy and are focused on delivering a positive shopping experience.
Types of Preorders
Choose the proper preorder method for your online business.
Pay Now
Offering the Pay Now option for your preorder is something you can implement in your business if you are confident that there is a high level of demand for a specific product.
When customers preorder a product, they go through the same checkout process as a normal purchase. They choose the preorder product and then pay for it using their preferred payment method.
The Pay Now option is most advantageous because it secures the sale for your business. However, customers paying in total for a preorder have higher expectations since they’ve paid for it.
Make sure you stick to the promised shipping date to avoid disappointment with your preorder product.
If you aren’t comfortable collecting total payments from your customers without a product, you can ask them to pay for a deposit. The remaining payment amount will be collected once the product becomes available.
Pay Later
Another pre-order method is Pay Later, which means that customers can secure their slot for out-of-stock products without any financial commitment. Instead, you collect a customer and notify them once the out-of-stock products become available again.
This pre-order method entails a risk because you don’t have assurance that the customers who have pledged to order the product will commit to the purchase.
With no financial commitments, they can easily back out of the purchase. It entails a risk because it means you have to pay for the item as you replenish your inventory without any guarantee of sale.
Get the eBook and learn how to launch your one-product Shopify store right!How to Set Up Pre Orders on Your Shopify Store
Follow these steps to accept pre orders on Shopify and increase sales. This can also be very helpful when you have Shopify print-on-demand business.
Step 1
Go to the Shopify admin dashboard and choose Settings.
On the left-hand side menu, choose Payments, and under Payment capture method, click Manage.
Choose the Manually option and click Save.
Step 2
Enable the option to preorder out of stock products in your store. At the Shopify admin, choose Products.
Go to the specific product page where you want to add the option to pre order and enable selling out of stock products.
The product information for that specific product is on the product details page. Check the box that says ‘Continue’ selling when out of stock and click Save.
Step 3
Pre ordering is not allowed in the normal product page template. You must create a separate template when handling pre orders.
Go to Shopify admin > Online Store > Themes. Click Edit Code to customize the online store theme.
Choose Add a New Template to create a new product page. Under Template type, choose JSON and assign it a name.
You can see the new template appear in the Shopify theme code editor. Save the new template for the preorder product page template.
If desired, you can customize the preorder product page template, such as adding a pre order button for out of stock products or upcoming product releases.
Step 4
From the Shopify admin panel, assign the products to the preorder template. Go to Products and choose the specific product for which you want to edit the information.
Choose the preorder template you created in the previous step in the Theme Template section.
Click Save to apply all changes. You can also select the preorder template when creating a new product listing on Shopify.
Best Practices for a Successful Pre Order Strategy
When customers choose to preorder a product, they’re interested in it. So, how do you capitalize on preorders to maximize your sales for your Shopify business?
Make Your Preorder Information Clear
Writing descriptions for a Shopify product that already exists is challenging enough. Imagine how difficult it is without a physical product!
Use your creativity and target the right keywords in writing descriptions for a preorder product. Make it informative and descriptive but valuable to your target audience.
Highlight the pre order product’s benefits and why it’s worth investing in it even if it is not ready yet or out of stock.
Add a Pre Order Button
Since you won’t have an add-to-cart button on pre-orders, you must include a pre-order button to indicate to your customers that they can “reserve” the item once it arrives.
Clearly state the preorder terms to help shoppers decide if they want to wait for new items.
Write a Preorder Cancellation and Shipping Policy
Transparency is essential when managing preorders because you want to set your customer expectations right off the bat. If a customer decides to cancel their preorder, your policy should indicate a time limit for when they are allowed to cancel or if cancellation is allowed at all.
On the other hand, you must provide a timeline for when the preorder products will arrive at your customer’s doorstep. Shoppers are willing to wait only if they know they have to wait and if the wait is reasonable enough for them.
Create a Sense of Urgency to Drive Conversions
Customers have already shown interest in a product. Drive conversion rates for your Shopify store by creating a sense of urgency. This works best with preorders because there is already a sense of the product being in high demand.
Showcase your preorder product as unique and highly coveted. You can also set a deadline for customers to place their preorders so they can act on them immediately.
You can also limit the number of preorders on offer, such as citing that you only have 20 preorder slots available.
Final Thoughts How to Sell Pre Orders on Shopify
A well-executed pre-ordering strategy can greatly improve your sales and profit goals. However, you should never lose sight of the customer experience and work hard to meet customer expectations.
If done right, selling preorders can improve the sustainability of your business and foster customer loyalty. It also ensures you can maintain a cash flow even when you experience supply chain disruptions.
Track Your Shopify Preorder Sales with Ease
Want to monitor your preorder performance in real time? The Shopify Sales Tracker tool helps you stay on top of every sale—preorders included. Track fulfillment status, revenue, and top-performing items so you can plan inventory and forecast demand with precision. Whether you’re collecting deposits or full payments, this tool gives you clear visibility into your sales pipeline.