How To Do Pre-Orders On Shopify? [Ultimate Guide]

To quicken the buying process, increase sales, and enable fast delivery of goods to clients is what e-commerce companies always seek out.

Therefore, pre-orders are an effective way to increase sales because they allow a possible transaction to be turned into a sale, thus helping you grow your business and enhance your relationship with clients.

As a result, they give customers an opportunity to relive the age-old excitement of eagerly waiting for their new favorite item—your product—to be delivered to their doorstep.

This enables your firm to acquire transparency and visibility that would help accurately forecast incomes and traffic demand.

To begin with, pre-orders are a thrilling shopping opportunity that you can offer right now in your shop using Shopify’s convenient pre-order feature.

This POST will tell you how to set up pre-orders and why they could be useful for your online store instead of waiting.

Table of contents:

• What is a Pre-order on Shopify?
• Types of Pre-Orders
• Why Use Pre-Orders on Shopify?
• How to set up Pre-Orders on Shopify?
• Requirements and restrictions of pre-orders on Shopify
• Faqs
• Conclusion

What is a Pre-order on Shopify?

Pre-order is receiving an advance for part of a product’s total sales price, dispatching it, and invoicing the balance using the customer’s saved payment source, sometimes later.

Pre-orders work as reservations that guarantee availability for customers whenever the product becomes in stock or is about to be released.

At the same time, they can aid in enhancing cash flow, building rapport with clients, and correctly determining demand levels.

Types of Pre-Orders

There are various types of pre-orders that you can consider. These are:

• Pay Now:- This option allows customers to go through their ordinary checkout process. Once placed, funds are collected instantly. However, one should know how to manage customer expectations while keeping up with committed shipping timeframes.
• Pay Later:- Money never changes hands until the product is made available to the customer. This method is appropriate for gathering information on a specific product or collecting contact lists for future marketing campaigns. Ensure you adhere strictly to the applicable data and privacy regulations.
• Crowdfunding:- Similar to the Pay Now option, funds are collected before orders are dispatched. This method is effective for new businesses that need many visitors and want customers who can wait sometime before receiving their orders.

Requirements and Restrictions of Pre-orders on Shopify

Before you use pre-orders, go through the terms and conditions below:

• The product must have a reasonable basis for stating that it will be shipped within some time.
• If there is no date indication, you must believe in good faith that the item will reach its destination within 30 days of purchase.
• If you cannot ship within the promised time, you should give the customer a fresh shipping date and explain his right to void or refund.
• No custom checkouts are allowed for stores that have not implemented pre-orders.
• Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Meta Pay do not support buying pre-orders on this store.
• Some local payment methods, including Klarna, Mollie iDEAL, and Sofort, cannot be used to pay for pre-orders.
• Only online store and custom storefront sales channels can handle pre-order products.’Requirements and restrictions of pre-orders on Shopify

Why Use Pre-Orders on Shopify?

Here are some best reasons why you should consider adding pre-orders to your Shopify strategy:

• Assessing Demand:- Pre-orders reveal customer intentions for the next items. The number of these orders helps estimate the required production quantity, thus minimizing risks of stock shortages or pile-ups.
• Set Off a Frenzy:- Pre-orders will ensure people talk about your new launches. By allowing customers to buy before the actual release date, you make them anticipate and anticipate it more, resulting in a possible increase in sales during launch day.
• Improving Cash Flow:- Pre-orders can boost your financial situation since payments are collected before orders are met. This is greatly beneficial because it can assist in paying off production costs or kick-starting projects.
• Minimizing Risk:- You can reduce risks when making things that no one will buy by measuring demand before they’re produced. This is particularly true for expensive or exclusive items.
• Better inventory management:- The data from pre-orders also helps in better inventory planning. Customer responses might enable adjustments in production runs or pre-order windows, thus bringing about more effective inventory management.

How to set up Pre-Orders on Shopify?

Begin by enabling pre-orders on Shopify. You need to set the payment capture to be done manually and once the order is processed, you can accept payments.

The next step involves creating a different product page template for the pre-order products and assigning them.

There are free Shopify preorder apps but you can also do this on your store without having one.

This is how it’s done:

Step 1: Capture Payments Manually

To begin, open your Shopify admin and navigate to Settings.

On the left-hand side menu, choose “Payments.” After that go to Payment capture method and select Manage.

Choose Manual from the payment capture method drop-down list then click on “Save”.

Step 2: Enable out-of-stock items ordering by customers

In step two, you will have to enable the option of enabling customers to order products that are out of stock.

Here is how it can be done.

Go to products from your Shopify admin page.

Once you click on ‘Products’, it will take you to your product page. Select the product that you want to enable out-of-stock selling for it.

You will land on product details page which has all information about the product you selected. Scroll down until you see “Continue selling when out of stock” option which should not be checked. You should uncheck this option because it is likely set as default.

This must be checked in order for it to work properly in your store, so check the box. On the top right, click save.

Step 3: Making a Template for Pre-Order Product Page

You cannot allow your customers to make pre-orders in the standard product pages with an added cart button. As such, there is need for another template that would allow them to place orders or book the products in advance.

This is how you can make a Shopify pre-order template.

In Shopify admin, select Themes in the Online Store.

Click on the three dots next to customize and choose Edit Code from there.

On the left menu click Add a new template and have your new product page template as below made.

Choose Template type as product, JSON type and give it a name. Press “Done.”

{
  "sections": {
    "main": {
      "type": "main-product",
      "blocks": {
        "vendor": {
          "type": "text",
          "settings": {
            "text": "{{ product.vendor }}",
            "text_style": "uppercase"
          }
        },
        "title": {
          "type": "title",
          "settings": {
          }
        },
        "pre_order_note": {
          "type": "text",
          "settings": {
            "text": "This item is available for pre-order. Please check the description for the expected availability date.",
            "text_style": "italic"
          }
        },
        "price": {
          "type": "price",
          "settings": {
          }
        },
        "variant_picker": {
          "type": "variant_picker",
          "settings": {
            "picker_type": "button"
          }
        },
        "quantity_selector": {
          "type": "quantity_selector",
          "settings": {
          }
        },
        "buy_buttons": {
          "type": "buy_buttons",
          "settings": {
            "show_dynamic_checkout": true,
            "show_gift_card_recipient": true
          }
        },
        "description": {
          "type": "description",
          "settings": {
          }
        },
        "share": {
          "type": "share",
          "settings": {
            "share_label": "Share"
          }
        }
      },
      "block_order": [
        "vendor",
        "title",
        "pre_order_note",
        "price",
        "variant_picker",
        "quantity_selector",
        "buy_buttons",
        "description",
        "share"
      ],
      "settings": {
        "enable_sticky_info": true,
        "color_scheme": "background-1",
        "media_size": "medium",
        "constrain_to_viewport": true,
        "media_fit": "contain",
        "gallery_layout": "stacked",
        "media_position": "left",
        "image_zoom": "lightbox",
        "mobile_thumbnails": "hide",
        "hide_variants": false,
        "enable_video_looping": false,
        "padding_top": 24,
        "padding_bottom": 24
      }
    },
    "related-products": {
      "type": "related-products",
      "settings": {
        "heading": "You may also like",
        "heading_size": "h2",
        "products_to_show": 4,
        "columns_desktop": 4,
        "color_scheme": "background-1",
        "image_ratio": "adapt",
        "image_shape": "default",
        "show_secondary_image": false,
        "show_vendor": false,
        "show_rating": false,
        "columns_mobile": "2",
        "padding_top": 36,
        "padding_bottom": 68
      }
    }
  },
  "order": [
    "main",
    "related-products"
  ]
}

Right now, this will open up on Shopify’s theme code editor as a new template.
Put here the Shopify preorder product page template code. This is one sample of such codes:
And save Shopify preorder product page template by clicking “Save”.

Step 4: Assign Products into Pre Order Template

Finally, you can assign the products to be offered as preorders on Shopify.
Move to products in the admin panel and edit the product that is going to accept preorders for.

Now, select preorder template that we had made earlier in Theme templates option.
After applying changes, click Save button with at least one new product.

Alternatively, create a new product and choose a preorder template for it.
That’s it. The chosen item will appear on the front end as if they are available for preordering only.

While adjusting theme customization settings, you can change the layout of the product page or even reorder messages.

Faqs:

Conclusion

Shopify has launched pre-order APIs and tooling to facilitate total personalization of any ordering experience direct0ly within the cart and Shopify Checkout. CartCoders also offers custom-built pre-orders for your Shopify store, and our in-house development team is always ready to help you out.

Moreover, if you want to employ new technology that will make your e-commerce more vibrant than others, trust CartCoders as your preferred Shopify store development company.