How To Enable Pre-Orders On Shopify

There are some apps that will allow you to sell products before they’re available. You need to find an app with preorders through the Shopify Apps page or from this list here of the best. One of the top recommended apps is Pre-order Now which you can find here.

Each app has a unique process. Be sure that you follow your app’s instructions.

You should not complete a transaction for a pre-order until the customer has been made aware that the product they’re ordering is not immediately available. You can capture payments at a later date, when you have the product available and ready for dispatch.

But don’t capture the payment after the product has been dispatched. Otherwise some customers might not have the funds to clear the transaction and you could lose out on some revenue.

Here are the steps below:

Step 1: Log In

Log into your Shopify dashboard using your user credentials.

Step 2: Settings

Go to the ‘Settings’ page and then click on ‘Payments’.

Step 3 – Authorization

Search for the ‘Payment Authorization’ section and then click on the option ‘Manually capture payment for orders’. You can then click on the ‘Save’ option.

The authorization period for Shopify is seven days. If you expect to collect payment after this date, you should look to use a third party payment gateway.

In order to ensure that the customer knows that the product they’re ordering is a pre-order product, you should follow the steps below.

Step 1: Log In

Log into your Shopify dashboard using your user credentials.

Step 2: Online Store

Click on ‘Online Store’ and then ‘Themes’. On the theme that you’re using, click on the ‘Actions’ and then the ‘Edit Code’.

Step 3: Add A New Template

In the ‘Templates Directory’ click on the ‘Add a new Template’. Then select the ‘product’ option from the drop down menu and name the template as ‘pre-order’.

Step 4: Add Code

Click on the ‘Create template’ option and then you will have a new template with the name pre-order.liquidtemplate and you should open this document in the code editor. Look for the code

{% section ‘product-template’ %}

and change it to the following:

{% section ‘product-pre-order-template’ %}

Step 5: Save

Click on the ‘Save’ option.

Step 6: Section Directory

Now click on the ‘Section directory’ and then ‘Add a new section’. You should add product-pre-order-template in the text field open.

Click on the ‘Create Section’. A code editor will open. You should delete all the default and copy and paste all the content to the product-pre-order-template.liquid file found in the Section Directory from the ‘product-template.liquid file in the Section Directory.

Step 7: Add To Cart Button

Next you need to change the add to cart button text in the product-pre-order-template.liquid file. For this, you will need to change a few lines of code. You’re searching for

{{ ‘products.product.add_to_cart’ | t }}
addToCart: {{ ‘products.product.add_to_cart’ | t | json }}

and want to replace these respectively with

{{ ‘Pre-order’ | json | remove: ‘”‘ }}
addToCart: {{ ‘Pre-order’ | json }},

Step 8: Save

Then click on the ‘Save’ button.

Step 9: Assign Templates

Then you need to assign the template to products that should be pre-ordered. To do this go to your ‘Products’ page.

Step 10: Find The Products

Find the products that you’re looking for and enter their editing screen. Then go to the Theme Templates section and change this to product.pre-order.

Step 11: Save

Then you can ‘Save’ your changes.

Step 12: Change Inventory Levels

In the product’s editing screen, click on the option ‘Allow customers to purchase this product when it’s out of stock’.

Step 13: Save

Then you can ‘Save’ your changes.