Offering pre-order products on your store can be an interesting strategy.
It consists in letting your customers order your product even before its manufacturing is finished, or before the product is officially released on the market. If well executed, this strategy can create a lot of excitement among your customers and a feeling of exclusivity.
It can also help you understand the level of demand for your product, and finance its production.
To offer a pre-order product on your store, here are a few steps to follow:
Creating your pre-order product listing
When creating your product page, you must make sure to indicate that your product is on pre-order. For example, enter the following information:
Short and long descriptions
You can fill in your descriptions with different information such as the maximum delivery date to be expected, the shipping costs applied on this product or the deadline to order your product.
Pre-order badge
You can give your product a customized "Pre-order" badge that will be visible on your store.
Programming the product for a limited time
If you want to allow your customers to pre-order this product for a limited time, so that you can manage your preparations, go to the Advanced Options of your product sheet and determine how long your product will be displayed.
The stock of your product in pre-order
Then go to the Price & Stock tab of the product file you want to offer for pre-order. You have to deactivate the stock management for your product.
The delivery of your pre-ordered product
This manipulation allows you to manage the delivery of a product that is not yet available.
You have two possibilities here:
Deactivate the delivery on your pre-ordered product (free delivery)
You have the possibility to deactivate the delivery of your pre-ordered product, directly via the Delivery tab of your product file.
In this case, no shipping costs will be applied and therefore requested from your customers for the purchase of your pre-order product.
Apply a specific delivery to your pre-ordered product
You have the possibility to set up a delivery mode dedicated only to your pre-ordered product.
Via the Settings > Manage my delivery options section, add a new delivery method:
- In the description of this delivery method, indicate the date from which the pre-ordered product will be shipped.
- Choose that this delivery method applies only to the products you have chosen. You will then have to add this delivery method to your product, directly from the Products > Product list section and the Other actions menu.
- In the Delivery time section, specify that the delivery time is not displayed on the order process. This way, the customer will only be based on the shipping date of the pre-ordered product (and not on a delay in days calculated according to the date they make the order on your store).
💡 Useful Tips
Since this is a pre-order product that is going to be delivered later, offering free shipping can be considered an attractive benefit for the customer who is going to have to wait.
💬 Feel free to contact your Business Coaches if you have any questions!