PreProduct currently has 4 different types of pre-orders. Capture only pre-orders,  charge later pre-orders, deposit upfront pre-orders and charge upfront pre-orders. Every type of pre-order swaps out your add-to-cart button for a pre-order equivilent. The difference between them is how and when they charge, explained below.

We also have a YouTube video on picking the right type of pre-order here.

Charge-later Pre-orders #

The customer goes through checkout at the time of pre-order and agrees to a deferred charge. Their card is then ‘vaulted’ with Shopify/PayPal/Stripe so that the charge can be triggered in the future.

Pros:

• High conversion rate for short-to-medium term pre-orders, as the customer doesn’t need to do anything once they’ve been through checkout for the deferred-charge to work.

Cons:

• Can be vulnerable to customers changing their addresses or expiring cards (read about our failed charge flow for countering this). 

Deposit-upfront Pre-orders #

Deposit-upfront pre-orders allow you to charge a portion of the total order amount up-front, securing the pre-order for both you and the customer. Their card is then vaulted with Shopify/PayPal/Stripe, so that it can be charged later on for the outstanding payment.

Pros:

• Increases the window of time that you can acquire orders, as can start pre-selling before stock is available or produced.
• Receive cash-flow before the product is available.
• Uses deferred charge to collect the outstanding payment for the order, making for a higher-conversation rate than draft orders or an alternative where the customer has to carry out an additional step.

Charge-upfront Pre-orders #

The transaction is started at the time of checkout like a regular buy-now order. The key differences to user experience are the add-to-cart button changing to say ‘pre-order’ and additional pre-order/shipping information being displayed.

On the merchant side, Orders are created with a fulfilment-hold in Shopify, whilst other platforms won’t receive the order until you trigger fulfilment from PreProduct.

Pros:

• Great for cashflow as you get paid up front.
• Allows you to capture orders for products that are currently not in stock.

Cons:

• May not be appropriate for lengthy lead times as the customers have paid upfront. This could negatively impact brand reputation and lead to a drag on customer service due to increased customer enquiries. (although PreProduct’s email campaign and customer portals can help here)

Capture-only Pre-orders #

With this method of pre-order, pre-orders are kept solely in PreProduct until you’re ready to collect payment. At this point, you can send out payment link emails to customers from PreProduct, which will allow customers to go through your checkout, pre-populated with their pre-order.

Pros:

• Allows you to take ‘soft’ orders for products that aren’t yet in stock and that might have uncertain lead times. Customers aren’t charged any money until you’re ready to send payment links out.
• Allows for testing out new products/variants by listing a pre-order, then only sending out payment links to customers and committing to production if you receive enough orders.
• It’s completely up to you on when to send out payment links. Tshis can be before or after you order from your suppliers.
• Pre-orders are kept in a different system (PreProduct) until paid i.e. separate from your ecommerce platform where regular orders are kept.

Cons:

• Not all pre-orders will convert when payment links are sent out.
• Payment isn’t collected upfront, so recouping cash is deferred.