What Are Pre-Orders?
Preorders attract more leads, validate ideas, engage current customers, and offer many other benefits for eCommerce businesses.
If you are someone looking to launch a preorder for your next product, you must consider the best practices and nuances to optimize the success of your campaign.
Preorders give new and returning customers the ability to buy an item that has yet to be released or is completely out of stock.
The product gets shipped immediately to customers who pre-ordered, giving them a leg up over the general public.
Pre-orders are a concept that works for brands, no matter how big or small. Although there’s less risk when compared to brick-and-mortar stores, eCommerce brands still bear a considerable risk and capital involved with transporting and selling physical goods.
Benefits
With pre-order campaigns, financial risks get reduced significantly, and they serve as a valuable way to legitimate any product idea.
Additionally, it’s an excellent way for brands to recoup sunk costs and maintain their cash flow regarding supply chains, shipping carriers, and manufacturers.
There are limitless ways that brands can use pre-orders to their advantage:
Test for market demand: You have the opportunity to test the market demand for your product before launching it. You can avoid overstocking or getting short on stock if your campaign is extremely successful.
Generate buzz: You can use pre-orders to create buzz around your brand. You can expand your brand awareness and create more leads for your brand.
Get more revenue upfront: You can get upfront revenue to fund product development. Also, if you charge the pre-orders on release, you can give a good idea of your future success.
Testimonials: Pre-orders act as great customer research and testimonials if executed correctly. Additionally, you get a lot of user-generated content once the product is finally stocked.
Types of Shopify Pre-Orders
Depending on the kind of business you run, there will be different kinds of pre-orders that suit you and your brand better:
Pay Now: You can think of it as a typical purchase, except the customers won’t get their products right away.
If there are existing items that are out of stock, but you have an exact date when they’ll get restocked, having pay-now pre-orders are a great way to keep shoppers engaged.
Pay Later: The shopper places their name on the list understanding that they’ll pay later when the product gets stocked. This pre-order allows both the customer and you to cancel at any time.
How To Use Shopify Preorders
Here are a few tips to help you get started with using preorders to enhance your Shopify store.
Shoppers must consider purchasing items that are not yet available in the store or are out of stock. As a seller, you’ll need to build the hype around your products, which include fantastic imagery and intriguing descriptions.
It’s okay to add prototypes or to show the factory samples in this case, so customers have something to look forward to. You’ll also benefit from early bird deals or discounts, so there’s an extra incentive to order urgently.
Another great idea is to allow customers to have referral links that they can share with others. Customized links can bring more traffic and enable you to create waiting lists in tiers.
It’ll make everyone want to hurry and order as quickly as possible. Social advertising is your best friend! Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook can help boost your efforts.
Targeting past customers, lookalike audiences, and unique ads are some of the best practices to capture the attention of those who are interested in your business and brand.
Try to gain partnerships and collaborate with influencers, as they can significantly affect how much your traffic wants to get their hands on the product you’re advertising.
4 Pre-order Examples
You want your pre-order campaigns to be catchy, unique, and attractive to your audience. It should come across as a special offer that launches the product and gets people’s attention.
This is your chance to see how people will respond before you invest more funds into the product.
1. Classic Diamond Huggies

The Classic Diamond Huggies preorder button is placed on the product page above the product description to highlight the shipping date expectation and to encourage shoppers to place their preorder for a holiday gift this holiday season!
2. Striped Robe in Soak

The Striped Robe preorder button is clean without any distractions on the product page. Shoppers are also given the option of paying in installments for their preorder to make it easier on their wallets especially during the holidays.
3. Turquoise Blue Ava Tweed Vest

The Turquoise Blue Ava Tweed Vest leaves no room for questioning the expected shipping date right above the preorder button in red to draw attention to your purchase date to ensure you will receive this gift just in time for the holidays.
4. Luxury Shower Set

The Luxury Shower Set preorder product page gives an expectation on free shipping and shipping date under the preorder button for an easy decision on whether or not this will make the perfect holiday gift for your loved one.A solid preorder marketing strategy will help you maximize your time and efforts while getting valuable customer feedback. With the holiday rush fast approaching, we got you covered with a free 14- Day Trial to set up preorders on PreOrderly Today!
Pre-orders are an excellent and less expensive way to promote your products this holiday season. There are so many different ways to approach the conversion path and a great way to communicate expectations for shipping your products to your customers.
With the holiday rush fast approaching, we got you covered with a free 14- Day Trial to set up pre-orders on PreOrderly Today!