Is your eCommerce store Pre-Order efficient? How does a Pre-Order Management System determine which items should be labeled as pre-orders?

Pre-Ordering is a tactic used by many retailers to build up anticipation for a product launch. If done well, retailers can build customer excitement and unleash the power of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

We recently spoke with a Shopify retailer who explained that their biggest challenge is not meeting their customer’s Pre-Order expectations.

Because their eCommerce site shows an “”Add to Cart”” button for both standard and Pre-Order items, shoppers cannot differentiate between them. This leads to a disjointed customer experience and misaligned expectations

A merchant’s Pre-Order system should be capable of multitasking automatically rather than manually intervening with customers on the status of their Pre-Order.

When a product runs out of stock and there’s an upcoming purchase order, the system should implement the following changes on the Product Display Page:

1. Switch the “”Add to Cart”” button to a “”Pre-Order”” button.

2. Display the Estimated Delivery Date for each product variant.

3. Update the new promise date if the purchase order delivery is preponed or postponed.

4. Turn off the flag “”Continue selling when out of stock”” on Shopify.

5. Replace the “”Pre-Order”” button with the flag “”Out of stock”” when the inventory arriving in a purchase order is exhausted.

Furthermore, how does a pre-order management system determine which items should be labeled as pre-orders?

When you sell thousands of products, one of the most complicated aspects of managing pre-orders is determining which items should be available for pre-order, and which should be treated as regular orders. This can vary by seasonal demands and the retailers own vision for sales. For example, a retailer selling Christmas ornaments would likely want to sell those as pre-order or back-orders in July. This is because the ornaments are likely not in stock yet, and selling these items ahead of time can help drum up enthusiasm going into the holiday season.

With our pre-order management system, you get next-level visibility into future inventory, and this information is automatically implemented into your eCommerce platform. The system uses information from Shopify, mainly the QOH and upcoming POs, to accurately allocate inventory and determine which items should be labeled as pre-orders. This information is then sent to Shopify and translated on the retailer’s PDP.

Are you leveraging a pre-order management system?

Perfect solution: The HotWax Commerce Pre-Order management system is a comprehensive tool to streamline the end-to-end process.