How to do Pre Orders on Shopify

 

1. Introduction

Pre orders are a marketing strategy used by e-commerce businesses to encourage customers to purchase a product before it is officially released or available for purchase. Understanding how to do pre orders on Shopify can be very valuable & useful for your business. 

Pre orders on Shopify can be a great way to generate buzz and anticipation for a new product or variant, as well gauging demand and ensuring there is sufficient interest in a new product before investing in production.

Additionally, pre-orders can help to secure early sales and revenue, which can be very important for smaller or newer businesses.

 

Types of pre orders on Shopify:

There are 4 main types of pre orders you can offer on Shopify; Capture only pre orders, charge later pre orders, deposit pre orders, charge upfront pre orders.

  • Capture only pre orders – this type of pre-order involves changing the buy now/add-to-cart button to a pre order button, and capturing the customers details/order in the pre-order system.
  • Charge later pre orders – this type of pre-order involves changing the buy now/add-to-cart button to a pre order button, the customer goes through the check-out at the time of placing the pre order and authorises a deferred charge. Shopify vaults the card details, and then the store triggers the deferred charge at a later stage.
  • Deposit pre orders – this type of pre order allows you to charge the customer for a portion of the purchase price up-front, and then the remaining at a later stage via a deferred charge.
  • Charge upfront pre orders – for this type of pre order the payment is taken upfront.

 


2. Setting up Pre Orders on Shopify 

 

2.1 Enabling pre orders in your Shopify store

You will need to download and install a pre order app from the Shopify app store. You will then need to integrate the app within your Shopify store. There are normally two different ways to do this depending on whether you have a Shopify 1.0 theme or a Shopify 2.0 theme. Both are outlined below:

  • Shopify 1.0 theme integration – you will need to find the Shopify theme file that has the buy button within it, and then adding the app’s snippet.
  • Shopify 2.0 theme integration – you will need to drag and drop the app block, from the theme customizer in Shopify admin.

 

2.2 Setting up Pre Order products

Once you have added the snippet or app block to your store you will be ready to list pre-orders on your Shopify store. 

You will need to list any products you wish to have on pre-order, in your chosen app. You will also be able to choose whether or not to offer an early bird discount, what variants to list for pre-order, along with pre-order limits and shipping timeframe.

 

3. Best Practices for Pre Orders on Shopify 

3.1 Promoting pre orders effectively

There are several different e-commerce marketing options that can help to promote and assist in having a successful pre order campaign. These are listed below;

  • Social media content both organic and paid
  • Press coverage
  • SEO
  • Collaborations
  • Email campaigns

Alongside these marketing options, there are some other strategies that can work really well with pre orders.

  • Targeting early adopters for new releases, new products etc
  • Generate an urgency for purchase by offering an early bird discount that is only on offer for pre order
  • Only offering a certain number of items, this will create a sense of scarcity

 

3.2 Setting realistic pre order timelines and delivery dates

It is important to ensure pre order customers are aware of approximate shipping timelines and that there may be some delay. With pre orders, shipping times are never certain, due to potential manufacturing and freight delays, which is often out of your control.

Pre order apps should allow you to regularly communicate via email with your pre order customers, so you can ensure they are kept up to date with shipping timeframes.

 

3.3 Communicating with pre order customers

A multi pronged approach is the best way to communicate effectively with pre order customers.

This can include the following methods:

  • Front end wording; this communicates to the customers pre order details/shipping time frames etc on the store front/on page cart
  • Email campaign; this can be used to keep customers updated
  • Customer portals; allows customers to check on the progress of their order, and can communicate shipping updates etc.

 

 

3.4 Managing refunds and cancellations of pre orders

Pre orders can be cancelled in Shopify in the same manner normal orders can be cancelled. Some pre order apps that feature a customer portal, also allow customers to cancel their pre order via the portal.

Refunding customers is at your discretion and can done as per the usual process in Shopify.

 

 

4. Conclusion

Pre orders, are a great tool that can be used by businesses to generate excitement for a new product, line, or sold-out products along with giving a business access to revenue sooner than may normally be possible.

There are a few different types of pre orders, and there will be one that best suits and aligns with your business model and goals. Alongside your chosen pre order type, there are many different techniques you can use to promote your pre order campaign and ensure it is successful.

This article was written by the team at PreProduct. PreProduct is a next generation Pre Order app, that specialises in helping stores run successful Pre Order campaigns.

If you would like to run a successful Pre Order campaign, then we recommend starting a free trial of PreProduct, to see if it is a good fit for your business.

Try PreProduct today

Unbounce pre-orders


1. Unbounce pre-orders with Shopify & PreProduct

Unbounce offers a super powerful and intuitive way to create and manage landing pages for new product launches. However, what if you wanted to start taking pre-orders from one of your landing pages?

For selling physical products, Shopify has been establishing itself as a market leader for quite some time now. PreProduct is a pre-order app that plugs into Shopify and enables you to launch new products via different kinds of pre-sale.  In the below guide, I’ll show you a quick and easy way to set up Unbounce pre-orders.

Although ordinarily confined to the Shopify store itself, in this guide I’ll show you how to run PreProduct in a ‘headless’ way from your Unbounce page. Enabling easy communication and capture of Shopify / Unbounce pre-orders. Essentially you’ll be adding a ‘custom HTML block’ to your Unbounce landing page and populating it with a couple of lines of code that PreProduct will automatically generate for you.

Each of the below steps is fairly straightforward, but feel free to get in touch if you run into any issues. I’ve also recorded a quick video here in case that’s your preferred tutorial format.

Requirements:

*Each of the above apps have fully functional free trials that you can take advantage of.

2. Step-by-step guide

2.1

  • For this tutorial we’ll be using Unbounce’s classic builder. If you don’t have an existing page set up, click the ‘create new’ button in the top right corner of Unbounce.
  • stage 1

2.2

  • Now click on the triple-dot symbol to the far right of your page’s card area. Then click ‘Edit champion variant’.
  • stage 2

2.3

  • You’ll now be taken to your page’s editor. Click and drag the ‘custom HTML’ block from the left-side menu onto the page. You should be greeted by a text input modal.
  • stage 3

2.4

  • Now we just need to generate a snippet in PreProduct to paste into the modal. Start by opening up PreProduct.
  • stage 4

2.5

  • If you haven’t already created a pre-order listing in PreProduct, create one now by clicking the ‘New listing’ menu item. Then select it from the main dashboard.
  • stage 5

2.6

  • Now click the ‘Generate headless code’ button on the left-hand side of the dashboard. A modal should pop up with your snippet in a grey text area. Highlight and copy the snippet.
  • stage 6

2.7

  • Now, back in Unbounce; paste the snippet into the ‘custom HTML code’ modal and click ‘save code’. You can now position the block where you’d like on the page. We generally recommend making the block no smaller than 40% of the desktop page width. Then on mobile, it should be used at around 100% width.
  • stage 7 stage 7.5

2.8

  • The pre-order front-end won’t show properly until you click ‘preview’. Let’s do that now. You should see the pre-order button appear, along with an on-page pre-order cart when clicked. Listing details and styling are controlled from within PreProduct’s dashboard.
  • stage 8

4. Summary

Congratulations, you’ve just enabled Unbounce pre-orders  from your landing page. Through PreProduct, you’ll now be able to take advantage of Unbounce’s optimisation and design, alongside Shopify’s powerful e-commerce engine. 

Pre-orders will flow from your Unbounce page into PreProduct and then at some point, Shopify. Depending on the kind of pre-order listing: ‘pay later’, ‘deposit-based’, or ‘pay now’.  For example; pay later’ pre-orders will just be in PreProduct until you send out payment link emails. Where as ‘pay now’ pre-orders will redirect to your Shopify checkout straight away and flow directly into the Shopify order system. 

What kind of pre-order listing to choose is a whole other article in itself. However, ‘time until ship’ is a good point to benchmark against. Is your new product going to be in customer’s hands next month? Well ‘pay now’ pre-orders is probably a good fit. Or is it more like 6 months with potential delays? Then pay later or deposit-based pre-orders will give you more flexibility and customer goodwill.

Feel free to reach out with any questions or to let us know how your pre-order campaign is going. We’re always happy to talk ‘pre-orders’ and ‘new product launches’.