14 Best Shopify Pre-Order Apps for your Store – [2024]

This Shopify app has lots of great features that allow you to sell products that aren’t on general release yet or when an item is out of stock for fulfillment later. There are some great features that make it perfect for most stores, including a mixed cart warning that will tell customers when they have a mixture of items in stock and out of stock in their cart.

And if items are in high demand, then the app can automatically change buy buttons to pre order, or back-order buttons when they’re no longer available.

To help keep your customers in the know, there is an area for you to place a message on the website that displays when shoppers can expect to receive a product. This can help convert those who are unsure and is really useful if you have stock coming in for a popular out-of-stock product.

Pre-Order Now – Pre-Order Highlights:

• Replace the out-of-stock button with a pre order button.
• Choose when you can start or stop pre order sales.
• Free installation so it integrates seamlessly into your Shopify theme.
• Choose whether pre orders apply to product variances or whole product lines.

Timesact Highlights:

• Free guided setup call with a human specialist (even on the free plan);
• Combine preorder and back in stock functionalities for a seamless user experience;
• Partial payments for preorders;
• Preorder automation based on inventory levels;
• Discount, badges, cart labels applied automatically for preorders and backorders;
• 24/7 chat and email support on any plan;
• Flexible pricing based on monthly usage;

While this option is a little pricey, there are lots of features that allow you to sell pre order, out-of-stock products to your website’s visitors. This app works by replacing the ‘add to cart’ button with a pre order button. This can be customized so you can change the text, color and style so it is more matching to your current branding.

This app works straight out of the box. There is no need to customize your theme, like you might have to do with some other apps. The app is fully compatible with all popular Shopify themes, AJAX carts, collections and homepages and all quick-view pop-ups.

In addition, you can set up default setting for products in your catalog. This can be set for variants, products or even entire collections. You set these settings in bulk or individually, depending on your specific needs.

Pre-Order Manager 2.0 PreOrder Highlights:

• Automatically enable pre order when products are out-of-stock.
• Set default settings for products, collections and variance.
• Analyze pre orders to see if there are any trends.
• Customize many elements of the pre order buttons.

Advanced Pre Order changes the ‘add to cart’ button into a pre order button when an item is out-of-stock. This allows you to get orders even when you can’t immediately fulfil the order. Of course, there may be times when you might not want this, which is why this app allows you to turn this option off.

This app allows you to also schedule pre order options when you have products that are coming into stock at a later date. Or when you have a release date for a future product (i.e. DVD, music, games, clothing line, etc.). In addition, you can also make the product completely unavailable until a certain date. This is often used to build up hype for a product. Customers can known when they can buy or pre order the product through the notify option within the Shopify app.

Advanced Pre-Order Highlights:

• Set pre order partial payment. This allows you to take a discount for products that can be pre ordered and other payments taken at a later date.
• Set timers to increase the urgency.
• Set the partial payment as a fixed price or percentage of the order.
• Sell products that are out-of-stock or aren’t available for sale yet due to a future release.

One of the simplest Shopify pre order apps, this is a great option if you want something that will work right out of the box. All you need to do once you’ve installed the app onto your eCommerce store, is find the product and enable the pre order option on it. As a result, this will showcase the PreOrder Me button on the product page.

You can customize for variances on products, so different variations can have different views.

When your pre order product is added into the cart, the app will identify it to the customer. This is done via a label.

There are lots of configuration options. This includes the style and text for PreOrder button for the product page. You can also customize the label style which identifies the way that pre order products are shown on the website and the tag on the cart page.

PreOrder Me Highlights:

• Customize a lot of the pre order app settings.
• Have different settings for product variances.
• Works straight after being installed.
• Identify which products can have the pre order functionality.

In Stock Alerts doesn’t allow you to have pre orders straight away. However, it does allow you to have people coming back to your website when products come back in stock. This is done via notifications sent to customers. There are lots of plans available for this Shopify app. One of these is free, but there is limited functionality and you’re better to actually use one of the premium versions.

This Shopify app allows users to subscribe to a specific variants based on size, color or something else. When an item comes back in stock, customers are automatically sent an email letting them know the product is available again. There is also a link directly to your product. You can also push for sales using follow-up re-stock reminders to improve conversions.

This app can link to several email programs including: MailChimp, Klaviyo, Bronto, Listrak, Retention Science and Facebook.

In Stock Alerts Highlights:

• Send customers automatic back in stock notifications via email.
• Can integrate with your MailChimp account.
• Send follow-up emails to increase conversions.
• Users don’t need to sign up for a user account to receive notifications.

With a free seven-day trial, there is a great reason why this Shopify pre order app might be a good one to try. With it you can create coming soon products on your store and start collecting orders before they are available. Shipping can then be done when the products are available to be shipped.

There are two product types in the app. The first is the pre order product. This allows your website visitors to place an order before the product becomes available officially. The app will display a date when the product will be available. This label can be customised, for example, changing the ‘available from’ to ‘will dispatch on’.

The app automatically changes the ‘add to cart’ to ‘pre order now’.

There is also the coming soon product. This will display a coming soon label instead of add to cart button. Customers can’t buy this product until you make it available or at a selected date if you add one in.

Coming Soon Products Preorders Highlights:

• Can use two different types of pre orders, one which allows orders to be made and one not.
• Easy to install, can be used within 10 seconds of installation.
• Product pages will be automatically updated.
• Can make products available as normal products on set dates.

As with the previous Shopify pre order app, this has two modes in which you can sell products through this app. The first is one that replaces the standard ‘add to cart’ button with a ‘pre order’ button on your Shopify store. This allows your customers to purchase items before they’re available.

There is another mode, which enables you to automatically allow customers to pre order products when they go out of stock. This mode changes the out-of-stock button to one that reads ‘pre order’. For this mode to work, however, you need to be sure that your Inventory Management is being handled by Shopify. If not, then the products will be shown as sold out.

Preorderly will clearly convey a message to your customers about the availability of the product and the delivery expectations. This allows you to generate a lot of goodwill with your customers.

Just a quick word or warning. This app is not compatible with the availability Schema attribute.

Pre-order PRO | Pre-orderly Highlights:

• Order tagging available so you can quickly find orders containing products that are pre ordered.
• Completely customize elements of the app that display information exactly how you want them to look.
• Set start and end dates for pre order products that aren’t available yet.
• Set pre order settings for variants or entire products.

This app offers many features for managing pre-orders on your Shopify store. There is a ‘pre-order now’ button that can be added to both product and collection pages for those that want to be first in line for exciting new products on your store. You can also have this set up separately for variations on products.

The bar tool is a really useful way of creating an announcement or information banner such as delivery information or news. This app will suit any theme and blend in seamlessly with your brand’s look.

Handy • Preorder and Bar Highlights

• Multilingual for international stores.
• Includes many pre-order features all in one app.
• A bar tool to highlight specific information or announcements.
• New features in development and coming soon.

This Shopify pre order app automatically does a lot of the work for you, making it a great asset for your eCommerce site. It will allow you to let customers buy products from you that are currently out of stock or not yet released as a standard order. You can then track all pre orders from your store’s backend.

The installation for this app is really easy. There is no need to know code to integrate it with your Shopify theme and you can use it immediately after you’ve installed the app. Once installed, go over to the functionality tabs and set the parameters you want to use for your store. Then your website will automatically manage the out-of-stock scenarios, allowing you to concentrate more on promoting your business.

The app showcases all the relevant information to you in one dashboard. Therefore, you can see what is currently going on and make arrangements to bring stock back in stock or limit sales as you need.

Pre‑order Autopilot Highlights:

• Automate the whole pre order system, so there is less work for you.
• All orders containing pre ordered items is tagged.
• Change the labels, so you can customize information displayed on your website.
• Easy to install and use.