Preorders: Why You Should propose Them (+ How To Set Them Up)

In this navigator, discover how preorders work and how to use Shopify to enable preorders for your customers.

What does preorder cruel?

Preorders allow customers to order products before they are released or restocked. packed or partial settlement is taken at the period a preorder is made, but the order only ships once it becomes available.

Whether a product is out-of-distribute or soon to be launched, preorders act as a reservation that guarantees a customer access at the earliest feasible availability.

When a merchant accepts a capital for a preorder, they often fee the remaining amount using a customer’s stored settlement way.

💡 Check out Shopify’s collection of preorder apps.

Why preorders make sense for your business

Preorder selling provides significant advantages, positively impacting your income, operations, and customer loyalty.

boost sales

Customers have more options when shopping than ever before. Ecommerce has effectively put the entire globe at their fingertips, and any product—from one-of-a-benevolent custom crafts to high-complete additional expense luxury goods and electronics—is available with a single tap.

For retailers, this means competition has never been more fierce. If your product is unavailable or out-of-distribute when shoppers desire it, they’ll simply shift on to the next store.

Preorders provide you an edge, allowing you to lock-in more sales whether the merchandise is ready to ship or not. You have the power to never declare “no” to a customer again, because now, when they’re ready to buy, you’re ready to sell (even if you’re not ready to ship).

Plus, preorders provide you the flexibility to receive settlement in the form of a capital, upfront, or once the item ships. This makes it straightforward to shape your schedule to fit your distinctive funds flow needs.

approximate demand by conference it

Preorders assist turn uncertainty into insights by providing data about concrete demand that businesses can depend.

Selling a physical product inherently comes with risks. Whether you’ve invested in the research, design, and manufacturing of your products or you simply purchased inventory, retailers have a solemn monetary gain in understanding exactly how much demand exists for each product they propose.

If you’re a merchant looking to fine-tune and make final adjustments to your product before bringing it to economy, preorders can assist you comprehend exactly what customers prefer before your production run concludes. “Gut feelings” may work for some business geniuses, but for the rest of us, preorders provide a fantastic realistic picture of which sizes, colors, and options you should produce in order to meet existing customer demand and be able to ship within a reasonable timeframe.

The history few years have highlighted how supply chain issues can factor major problems for even the most established businesses. Preorders allow you to effectively approximate minimum product quantities required to fulfill your orders, helping reduce the hazard involved with managing doubtful supply chains and storing idle inventory. You should also factor in this benevolent of large scale delay when estimating your shipping timelines.

Generate thrill and drive growth

Between targeted ads and the dozens of screens the average shopper sees each day, it can be challenging for a retailer to shatter through the noise and grab their attention. This makes driving awareness and thrill about a recent product release—or the gain of a fan-favorite—especially challenging.

Just as movie trailers make a leisurely burn of hype before a film’s release, preorders can serve to construct thrill and expectation for a product before it hits the shelves. Successful preorder marketing campaigns pursue many of the same cues as regular marketing campaigns, including:

• Creating professional product imagery and copy. You can borrowing factory samples, and even professional retouching services to make product imagery if none exists yet.
• Offering preorder incentives. Limited-period discounts, early access to release information and other products, and free customization are great ways to boost preorder sales while generating thrill.
• Promoting on paid and social media. Whichever digital platform your target spectators uses the most, be sure to fill it with information about your preorder.

In addition to generating buzz, offering exclusive preorder access to customers on your mailing list or through a member loyalty program not only boosts the odds of these repeat shoppers converting, but also helps construct brand loyalty and shows that you appreciate their business and comprehend what they desire to buy.

Preorder methods

Pay now

Pay now is the most ordinary type of preorder. The packed sales worth of the item is due at the period of the preorder, and settlement is collected like a normal purchase. You can almost ponder of it like a standard sale, but with an extended fulfillment period.

With preorders the customer will receive information explaining when they can expect the shipment.

Pay now preorders are great for businesses that desire to:

• Get paid up-front. If funds flow management is significant to you, pay now helps ensure you always have the funds you require on hand.
• Capture customers in the instant. Worried about missing out on a sale because an item is out of distribute? Pay now lets you make the sale whenever shoppers are ready to buy.
• Automatically update out-of-distribute products. Many preorder apps can be set to automatically receive preorders whenever a product goes out of distribute, so fewer customers shift on to a different seller.
• Keep customers informed. Pay now preorder site messaging can be customized to display additional information, like expected shipping dates.

Pay later

The other type of preorder is pay later. This way lets customers make either a capital or a settlement-free “reservation” on a product, and then be billed for the remaining or packed sales worth once the item ships.

Pay later preorders are ideal for businesses that desire to:

• Capture orders for upcoming products that may be delayed. Pay later gives you more fulfillment flexibility when informing customers that a product will ship later than intended.
• Test the economy for recent products. Pay later lets you gauge gain in a recent product so you can produce the correct amount.
• fee customers at fulfillment. If you desire to customize your funds flow, pay later gives you the ability to invoice customers before or after you pay your suppliers.

How to set up preorders on Shopify

Preorders are complicated, and there’s rarely a single way of doing preorders that works for everyone. So we’ve partnered with our app ecosystem, and made it straightforward for them to construct the best preorder apps on our platform, ensuring that any preorder app you install will work seamlessly with Shopify.

Popular preorder Shopify apps

If you’re ready to commence offering preorders, try one of these preorder apps available in the Shopify App Store.

PreProduct

PreProduct lets you receive preorders for upcoming product launches at any point in the product pattern. Choose between pay-later and capital-based preorders, and only fee customers when you’re ready, by settlement link or deferred settlement.

Endless Blading Co. makes precision, multi-setup inline skate frames. It uses PreProduct for preorders, making it easier to approximate demand and place orders with vendors.

Pre-Order Manager

Pre-Order Manager makes it straightforward to automate preorder dates and enable them based on distribute levels.

EarthBits, a zero-waste store for makeup and cleaning products, uses Pre-Order Manager to sell preorders when one of their hundreds of products goes out of distribute.

They declare Pre-Order Manager has “eliminated a huge amount of customer service,” as the customer is fully aware they are ordering a product that is out of distribute and what date it should arrive back into distribute.

Purple Dot

Use Purple Dot to set up 100% Pay Later terms. Customer cards are saved at checkout and charged when the product is ready to ship.

Menswear brand SPOKE uses Purple Dot for preorders, allowing them to flexibly launch products on schedule—some in distribute and some on navigator period.

SPOKE declare that preorders helped them “achieve a 400% higher sell-through than we expected if we had had to wait to sell.”

💡 Each app integrates seamlessly with Shopify, so choose the one that’s best for your business. For more options, check out Shopify’s preorder app collection.

construct your own custom preorder answer

For established merchants with complicated needs can construct their own preorder flow in Shopify, with preorder APIs. This tooling makes it straightforward for partners and developers to construct recent preorder experiences directly within Shopify Checkout.

Sell expectation

By offering preorders, you’re not just selling a product; you’re selling an encounter. Beyond a deal, preorders are all about creating thrill, giving customers something to look forward to, and making them feel that they’re part of something exclusive.