Tag: pre-order

Shopify pre-orders vs Kickstarter 

Posted on by admin

Contents

1. Introduction

The following guide is going to look at the very important debate between Shopify pre-orders vs Kickstarter and choosing which is best for launching a new product.

The Rising Importance of Pre-orders in E-Commerce

Pre-orders are increasingly becoming more important in e-commerce, this is due to several factors; some are listed below;

  • Revenue generation – Pre-orders contribute to revenue generation before the product’s official release. Customers typically pay in advance when placing a pre-order, providing businesses with a steady cash flow even before the product is available for shipment.
  • Production Planning and Inventory Management – Pre-orders help businesses forecast demand and plan production accordingly. By analysing pre-order data, companies can make informed decisions about manufacturing, supply chain management, and inventory allocation. This reduces the risk of overproduction or under-stocking, thus optimizing operational efficiency.
rolls of fabric, factory, material
  • Anticipation and Exclusivity: Pre-orders allow customers to secure a product before its official release date, creating a sense of anticipation and exclusivity. By placing a pre-order, customers can ensure they will be among the first to receive the item, giving them a feeling of being ahead of the curve.

The power of pre-selling a new product:

Utilising pre-orders for e-commerce can offer lots of benefits, some of these include;

  • Marketing and Promotion: Pre-orders can serve as a marketing and promotional tool for companies. They generate buzz and excitement around a product before its release, creating a sense of urgency to secure a reservation. E-commerce platforms can leverage pre-orders to build anticipation through targeted advertising, social media campaigns, and influencer collaborations.
social, media, social media
  • Customer Engagement and Loyalty: Pre-orders provide an opportunity for e-commerce companies to engage with customers and build loyalty. By allowing customers to secure a product in advance, businesses demonstrate that they value their customers’ preferences and trust. This can lead to increased customer loyalty and repeat purchases in the future.

What to Expect from This Comparison Guide?

This comparison guide will look at the Shopify vs Kickstarter debate, analysing the main differences between using Kickstarter or other crowdfunding platforms vs offering Pre-orders on your e-commerce platform (i.e. Shopify) for releasing a new product.

2. Understanding Shopify and Pre-Orders

The Basics of Shopify Pre-orders:

Pre-selling on Shopify allows you to sell products that are not currently in stock or available for immediate purchase directly from your own website/e-commerce platform. Here are the basic aspects of Shopify pre-orders:

  1. Availability: With pre-selling, you can list products on your Shopify store even if they are out of stock or not yet released. This enables customers to place orders in advance, securing their purchase for when the product becomes available.
  2. Product visibility: Pre-order products are displayed on your Shopify store like any other product, with the option to indicate their availability status as “pre-order” or “coming soon.” This helps customers understand that the product is not currently in stock but can be ordered in advance.
  3. Order placement: Customers can add pre-order items to their cart and proceed to checkout just like regular purchases. The checkout process remains the same, allowing customers to provide their shipping information and select their preferred payment method.
  4. Payment options: Shopify offers flexibility in terms of payment collection for pre-orders. You can choose to collect full payment, partial payment, or no payment upfront at the time of order placement, depending on your business strategy and product availability.

By leveraging Shopify pre-orders, you can gauge demand for new products, generate customer excitement, and secure sales before the items are physically in stock.

Key Benefits of Using an advanced Shopify Pre-order App like PreProduct:

  • PreProduct allows you to charge in a way that makes sense for you: later, upfront, deposit etc
  • A Fully customisable set of customer communication tools to keep customers in the loop: product-page messaging, email campaign and customer portal.
  • Manage pre-orders in their own system until paid, whilst closely integrating with Shopify so you have the power of both systems.

How do Shopify pre-orders work:

In order to utilize pre-orders, you must first install a pre-order app from the Shopify App Store and then go on to handle pre-orders within the Shopify admin interface or within the application itself.

To enable an item for pre-order, you will need to finalize app setup (any snippets/blocks that need adding), then list the Shopify product in question via the app.

Once pre-orders are configured, your customers gain the ability to pre-order (depending on the type of pre-order you set-up) for products before they are ready for shipment.

To access details pertaining to your pre-orders, it is essential to have a pre-order app in use. If a pre-order app is installed, you should also be able to see pre-order specific information in the Product and Orders screens of your Shopify admin, as well as within your specific Pre-order App.

As mentioned above, apps will offer multiple ways to offer pre-orders. The three main pre-order types are:

  1. Charge upfront pre-orders – this allows you to charge the customer for the pre-order when they place the pre-order
  2. Charge later pre-orders – the customer goes through the checkout at the time of placing the order, but is not charged, instead they agree to a deferred charge, and Shopify vaults their card details until the store is ready to trigger the payment at a later stage.
  3. Deposit based pre-orders – allows the store to charge a portion of the transaction up-front, the customers card details are vaulted by Shopify, allowing you to charge the outstanding amount at a later stage.

3. Understanding Kickstarter and Crowdfunding platforms

What is Kickstarter and How Does It Work?

Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform that allows individuals, groups, and organizations to raise funds for creative projects and ideas. It allows the creator to set a backing goal within a specified timeframe. Video game and board game developers particularly like releasing crowdfunding projects.

People interested in supporting the project, known as backers, can contribute money to help raise money and bring the ideas to life. In return for their support, backers often receive rewards or early access to the project.

crowdfunding, idea, bulb

The Unique Advantages of Using Kickstarter for Crowdfunding:

Kickstarter offers several unique advantages for crowdfunding campaigns:

  1. Broad Audience: Kickstarter has a large and diverse community of backers who actively browse and support projects. This provides creators with a built-in audience and increases the visibility of their projects to a wide range of potential supporters.
  2. All-or-Nothing Funding Model: Kickstarter operates on an all-or-nothing funding model. This means that if a project fails to reach its backing goal within the specified timeframe, no money is collected from backers, and the project does not move forward. This model creates a sense of urgency and encourages backers to rally behind the project to raise money and ensure its success.
  3. Backer Engagement: Kickstarter emphasises the importance of building a community around projects. Creators can actively engage with their backers through project updates, comments, and rewards. This fosters a sense of involvement and connection, creating a dedicated group of supporters who are invested in the project’s success.
  4. Pre-Selling and Validation: Kickstarter allows creators to pre-sell their products or offer exclusive rewards to backers. This not only helps generate funds but also serves as a validation of the market demand for the project.

Noteworthy Kickstarter Success Stories

  • Exploding Kittens: Exploding Kittens is a card game that became a massive success on Kickstarter in 2015. The campaign broke records by raising over $8 million in just 30 days. The game’s unique and humorous concept, coupled with effective marketing, contributed to its phenomenal success. Exploding Kittens went on to become one of the most successful tabletop games in recent years.
  • Oculus VR: Oculus VR, the company behind the popular virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, launched its groundbreaking successful campaign on Kickstarter in 2012. The campaign raised more than $2 million, sparking significant interest in virtual reality technology. Oculus VR was later acquired by Facebook, further propelling the development of virtual reality.
  • Pebble: Pebble is a smartwatch company that gained widespread recognition through its Kickstarter campaign in 2012. It raised over $10 million, making it one of the most successful Kickstarter projects at the time. Pebble went on to become a prominent player in the smartwatch industry before being acquired by Fitbit in 2016.

4. Comparison between Shopify Pre-orders and Kickstarter

Project Types and Scope: Shopify Pre-Orders vs Kickstarter

Kickstarter only offers the one format. An All-or-Nothing Funding Model, that is where a backing goal is set to be achieved within a specified timeframe, or backers don’t get charged.

Shopify pre-orders on the other hand allow you to offer different charging options, therefore which allows for flexible funding. In the case of PreProduct: charge upfront pre-orders, charge later pre-orders or deposit based pre-orders.

Funding Mechanism: The Contrast Between Shopify Pre-orders and Kickstarter

Shopify pre-orders gives you the choice as to when you would like to receive revenue. You have the option to charge upfront with charge upfront pre-orders, collect a deposit upfront then charge the outstanding amount at a later time or charge the full amount at a later time with charge later pre-orders.

In contrast with Kickstarter you will only receive revenue if and when the project meets the goal and is successfully funded. There is a 14 calendar day window following your project’s deadline where Kickstarter will collect and process the pledges, and then the funding is then released.

Audience Reach and Marketing: Exploring the Differences

Crowdfunding platforms have a built-in audience of backers, whom are people who generally love the platform and pledge on projects regularly.

However, this audience tends towards certain industries like gaming and early adopter hardware gadgets/fashion. It also wouldn’t be advisable to rely on for your first bunch of sales, as the Kickstarter algorithm and social proof won’t kick in at the beginning.

Shopify on the other hand is your own store/website, which means you’re solely responsible for driving traffic to your website.

Although both Shopify and Ecommerce crowdfunding campaigns in general often heavily rely on paid social media ads for traction and sales, but at least with Shopify you’re driving customers to your own domain.

Because of this, existing brands usually opt for Shopify/their own website over Kickstarter, even if their first product launched via crowdfunding.

Timeframe: Getting Your Idea to Market

Kickstarter allows campaigns to run for 1 to 60 days maximum, and it is generally recommended to use a 30 day time frame.

This means that even if you are very close to your funding goal on the last day of the campaign, you can not extend it, and the project will not go ahead, no backers will be charged.

With Shopify pre-orders you are completely in control of the time frame. You can set the shipping time that suits you, and there is also no financial goal to be met.

Fees: Comparing the Costs

For crowdfunding platforms if your project is successfully funded, there are two main types of fees that will be collected from your project total: A platform for for example Kickstarter’s is a 5% fee, and payment processing fees (between 3% and 5%). If your project isn’t successful, there are no fees.

For a Shopify app, we will look at PreProduct (our Shopify app), fees start from $19.99 per month (plus a usage charge of 0.5% of paid pre-order revenue).

justice, scales, balance

Evaluating the two platforms

Kickstarter is for a short set time period, and this can not be extended, so there is high pressure to ensure you reach your goal in the set time period. You are also driving traffic (via your chosen marketing methods) to another platform rather than your own.

A favourable aspect of Kickstarter is that it has an in-built audience, so without any marketing effort your project can be exposed to the inbuilt Kickstarter audience.

When using a Shopify pre-order app, you are in control of how long you offer pre-orders for, and you can extend or shorten this time period it is completely up to you.

Another benefit of using a pre-order app like PreProduct, is that you are sending all traffic to your website, rather than to another companies website ie Kickstarter.

hong kong, city, traffic

5. How to Choose: Shopify Pre-Orders or Kickstarter?

Factors to Consider When Choosing Your Platform, Making the Right Choice for Your Business:

Is it just a one hit product you are planning to launch and fulfil, or are you planning to make a business out of the initial product launch?

  • If you are at the early stage of your business and just wanting to launch your product with no business plans, Kickstarter will probably meet your needs just fine.
  • If you are wanting to make a business out of your product launch, then using Shopify combined with a pre-order app may be more beneficial as you are not confined to Kickstarters time-frames and rules + you can start building up marketing channels to your site
  • Are you wanting to launch and pre-sell more than one product?
  • You are able to run more than one Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, but instead running multiple pre-order campaigns on the one site may be easier to manage, customers may also be interested in ordering more than one pre-order product.
space, startup, laptop

What kind of time frame are you wanting to run the campaign for? Do you want to be able to make changes to the time frame?

  • A Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign requires you to set a specific timeframe, that is between 1 and 60 days. Once the campaign is created and begins this timeframe can not be edited.
  • Pre-order apps allow you to run the pre-order campaign for as short or as long as you like, and often do not require a timeframe to be set when the pre-order is launched.

Do you need an inbuilt audience?

  • Kickstarter has a large in-built audience and will also choose some projects to be featured or given the ‘Project We Love’ designation. If you have not undertaken any marketing, and have no existing audience, Kickstarter may be beneficial to get your project in front of a large audience. Although please note, you will need to ‘seed’ the campaign with at least a handful or orders to have a chance of organic sales from the platform.
  • Using Shopify and a pre-order app will not provide an in-built audience, but you will be driving all traffic towards your own site.

Fee structure

  • Kickstarter collects a 5% fee from the funds collected for creators. Stripe, the payments processor, will also collect a payment processing fee (roughly 3-5%).
  • All Shopify pre-order apps vary in the fees they charge. PreProduct our Shopify app, offers 3 different plans each with varying fees. Our cheapest plan is $19.99 per month, and then a 0.5% of paid pre-order revenue.

Using Kickstarter first, then transitioning to Shopify + PreProduct

  • An option that allows you to benefit from the advantages of both Crowdfunding and Shopify pre-orders, is to first use a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to launch your initial product and campaign, then after the campaign finishes, direct traffic to your own site and start running pre-orders.

7. Comparison chart

FeatureShopify + PreProductKickstarter
Host on your domain✅❌
Complete control of product page✅❌
Inbuilt audience❌✅
Campaign can exceed 30 days✅❌
Can control when you trigger charge✅❌
Can charge a deposit upfront✅❌
Can charge full amount upfront✅❌
Deferred charge✅✅
Can send emails to customers on demand✅✅
Mandatory fees❌✅
Google analytics tracking✅✅
Offer early bird discount✅✅
Shows an up to date funds raised bar❌✅

8. Conclusion

  • Reflecting on the Shopify Pre-orders vs Kickstarter Debate

As you can see from this article, there are a lot of points to consider when deciding whether it is best to use either Shopify pre-orders or Kickstarter to launch a new product or variant, and it is important to evaluate and think through all of these points.

Kickstarter has the benefit of an inbuilt audience, which may be important for some new businesses, but Shopify pre-orders gives you full control.

You can choose when to charge customers, when to end or extend a pre-order campaign, and you are also directing all traffic to your own business site.

You also have the option to use a hybrid model, launching your campaign on Kickstarter and then transition to Shopify pre-orders afterwards.

  • Future Trends and Developments to Watch in Pre-orders and Crowdfunding

The pre-order and crowdfunding landscape is constantly developing.

One of the interesting developments happening in the pre-order/crowd funding space is the evolution of artificial intelligence and improved data analytics which can help campaign creators optimize their marketing strategy, predict demand, and set more accurate funding goals.

artificial intelligence, brain, think

Another trend is the use of social media such as Instagram, Facebook & TikTok. For marketing to direct customers to your campaign, as well as for social proof and reviews, integrating customer reviews and social proof (e.g., user-generated content) into pre-order pages to build trust and credibility among potential buyers.

internet, whatsapp, smartphone

Hopefully this guide has been helpful and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Happy pre-selling!

Pre-sell With PreProduct

7 day free trial with all plans

shopify app store badge
different platform badge

How to set up pre-orders on Shopify

Posted on by Eliza

Contents

1. Introduction

Pre-orders can be a great tool for your online store, with potential to increase hype around new releases whilst solving your cash flow problems. It’s beneficial to understand how to set up Shopify pre-orders.

What is a pre-order?

A pre-order is where customers can place orders for products or services before they become available for general sale. Essentially, customers are buying an item before it is physically in stock or released.

There are several benefits to setting up pre-orders:

Pre-orders can provide insight for Shopify stores about the demand for their products.

By seeing how many people are pre-ordering an item, stores can adjust their production and inventory management to meet demand. This can help them avoid overproduction, which can lead to excess inventory and financial losses. If you plan to use pre-orders for probing future demand, we recommend capture-only or charge-later pre-orders, that way customers aren’t being charged anything until you’re comfortable moving forwards.

Pre-orders can generate buzz and excitement for a product before its release.

By allowing customers to pre-order, store owners can boost hype and create a sense of exclusivity around new releases. It also gives you an opportunity to launch twice in a way, once for the pre-order release and once again when the product arrives and you start taking regular buy-now orders.

Pre-orders can boost your online store cashflow, as they can capture revenue upfront.

When customers pre-order products, they typically pay the full price or a deposit at the time of the order, which provides stores with a cash flow boost before the product is even released. This can be especially helpful for small businesses or startups that may not have access to significant capital or financing (although financing options for small e-comm brands is in improving!) .

2. Set up pre-orders on Shopify

Does my Shopify store support pre-orders?

All Shopify stores are capable of supporting pre-orders, however not all payment processors support deferred-charge pre-orders. Currently both Shopify Payments and PaPal are supported, however you will run into issues when using an unsupported third party payment gateway or even Shop Pay.

That said, Shopify will automatically hide any unsupported payment providers from your checkout. So, as long as you have Shopify Payments or PayPal enabled, you’re good to go and move forward to set up pre-orders on Shopify.

Installing a Pre-order App

To get started and set up pre-orders on Shopify, visit the Shopify App Store and search for “pre-order”, then select the app you wish to install.

Once you have located the app, click on it to access the app listing page, and then select the “Add app” option.

To grant the app access to your Shopify admin account, click “Install app” and authorize its use.

Integrating the App with Your Storefront

Shopify 1.0

If your Shopify theme is Shopify “store 1.0” and you’re not comfortable with customising the code of your product template, then I’d recommend contacting the app developer, as they’ll need to edit code to add their snippet to your online store.

Generally the process is to locate the Shopify theme file containing the “buy” button and insert the app’s customized code beneath the {% endform %} liquid tag. This will let the app’s script determine which product the pre-order button should apply for (if any) when running on that page.

Keep in mind that the file name may differ, but commonly it will be one of: product-template.liquid, product-form.liquid, or product-main.liquid, among others. (Typically in your ‘sections’ or ‘snippets’ folder)

*We also recommend saving your theme file locally first, incase of any mistakes. That way you have a backup if anything goes wrong, as well as being able to take advantage of powerful code editor ‘file find’ tools like ‘find in project’.

Shopify 2.0

With the introduction of Shopify 2.0, app blocks can now seamlessly integrate into the Shopify admin’s drag-and-drop theme customizer, making it much easier to set up pre-orders on Shopify. (‘app block’ is effectively the same as a ‘snippet’ in this context)

App blocks streamline the product pre-order template installation process, as well as automatically removing themselves if you uninstall the app.

Listing Pre-orders on Shopify

Once you’ve completed the above steps to integrate the app with your Shopify storefront, you can now start pre-selling!

Begin by listing a product in your selected pre-order app. Most if not all pre-order apps sit on top of your existing Shopify product listings. Once listed in the app, the pre-order product page’s cart button text should be replaced with a pre-order version, accompanied by any other front-end additional information, i.e. special pre-order messaging.

You will need to decide which type of pre-order to use, generally depending on the payment settings they use. The general pre-order types are:

  • Charge upfront pre-order – 100% charged upfront (Most apps will offer this).
  • Charge Later pre-orders – 100% charged later when you trigger the charge.
  • Deposit-based pre-orders – A percentage paid upfront, with the outstanding charged later.
  • Capture-only pre-orders – A payment link is sent once you’re ready to send customers through your payment gateway.

Different apps may support or not support any of the above, so it’s important to research this ahead of installing (for example, PreProduct’s list is here).

What kind of pre-order should you use?
pros, and, cons

The below is just a set of rough guidelines from what I’ve seen running a pre-order solution over the years.

Charge upfront pre-orders are useful if you need the cash flow upfront, and appropriate if you have a good idea of when the pre-order items will be ready for shipping. Charging upfront also comes with a higher commitment from customers, over something like capture-only or notify-me-when-in-stock.

Charge upfront may not be the best type of pre-order if you’re worried about manufacturing delays or freight issues. Customers could become frustrated if they’ve fully paid, but then have unexpected delays receiving the product.

Charge later pre-orders can be one of the better choices when you’re not sure how long manufacturing may take, or when there is some uncertainty around production and supply chain. As customers will be less inclined to be annoyed by delays when they haven’t parted with any money yet. It’s still important to keep customers informed of delays though.

Charge later is also convenient if customers have a change of mind, whilst waiting for the out of stock product to come in; because no refund is needed, the pre-order can just be cancelled (without any bank transaction started/cancellation needed).

Deposit-based pre-orders is a good alternative that sits between charge upfront pre-order and charge later pre-order. This type of pre-order shows commitment from customers, but also means customers do not need to pay for the full product upfront, which can help increase pre-order sales by lowering the price to buy for customers.

Capture-only pre-orders can be a great pre-order option when you need to gauge interest. They require the least amount of commitment from both the buyers and shop owners. Similar to a back-in-stock flow, customer’s only go through checkout once the product’s available and can be imminently shipped.

Deciding on a pre-order shipping statment

When creating a pre-order listing, you will also need to set a shipping statement. This could be in a period of days or fixed phrase (ie ‘Next Summer’). The balance here is that a pre-order listing with too vague a shipping statement can deter potential buyers, however an exact shipping statement with a much longer duration can also detract from the willingness to buy.

At PreProduct, generally we advise merchants to keep it specific when they can. With the caveat that you should go with what’s comfortable and if that’s not committing to an exact date, then that’s a completely sensible decision. You should also bear in mind that the communicated shipping statement can be changed at any point (well in a lot of apps at least).

Choosing an exact pre-order shipping statement
Using a less specific pre-order shipping statement

Shopify product settings

The product/variant section of the Shopify admin dashboard contains an option to enable the ‘continue selling when out of stock’ feature. This setting is crucial when utilising pre-orders and has two important purposes:

  1. If a product has zero stock and the box is unchecked, customers will not be able to purchase it. However, if the box is checked, the product can still pass through the checkout, whatever the inventory level. Some apps (eg PreProduct) automatically manage this box, when creating/finishing a pre-order listing.
  2. Furthermore, most Shopify themes display an ‘out of stock’ message when a product/variant has zero stock and the box is un-ticked. Ensuring the ‘continue selling when out of stock’ box is ticked will prevent this message from being displayed.

3. Offering Discounts on Pre-orders

Basic Discount Setup

If you’re not using a pre-order app, you can set up a discount in any theme by altering the ‘Price’ and ‘Compare at Price’ in the Shopify product admin. The ‘Compare at Price’ is the original price and the ‘Price’ is the discounted price. This means the Shopify will know that there is a discount and your theme will most likely reflect this on your front-end. 

Purchase Options Discounts

For pre-order listings that use purchase options (in PreProduct’s case, this is every kind apart from capture-only listings), rather than altering the price of the product directly on Shopify, the discount is applied at the pre-order listing and order level.

This means that the discount is fixed for any pre-orders already captured, but if you decide to change the discount for future pre-orders, they’ll have the updated subtraction applied. This is great, as you don’t need to worry about the price change; and furthermore, can even change the Shopify product price without impacting previous pre-orders.

With early bird discounts, you can enable customers to commit to a purchase early on and capture more sales, this is due to a created sense of exclusivity and urgency. Tapping into the classic psychology of ‘wanting more for less’ and FOMO.

Letting early adopters get in early can boost customer loyalty, and rewarding these customers with a discount can boost this dynamic even more so.

4. Setting up pre-orders on Shopify to use deposits

Creating Deposit-based pre-orders

When you set up pre-orders on Shopify and create a listing, there should be an option to choose whether to capture deposits/partial payments for pre-order listings in supporting deposit pre-order apps.

When creating a pre-order listing, you will just need to select the deposit type: fixed amount or percentage. This will be communicated on the product and cart pages, as well as next to the payment authorization section of the checkout.

How do deposit pre-orders work?

Pre-order listings that use deposits will communicate to customers the price and terms of the order before they click the pre-order cart button. They’ll then be directed through your usual checkout process, however there will be details of the deposit price, the outstanding price, as well as when the merchant plans to charge it. Then once you’re ready to trigger the outstanding payment, you can trigger the charge via your pre-order app. Usually this is is powered by vaulted credit card technology so no further action is needed from the customer.

Using deposits can be beneficial as they require customers to commit a portion of the pre-order payments upfront, demonstrating a genuine interest and commitment to purchasing the product.

Deposits provide an immediate influx of cash for the business, which can be crucial for covering production costs, marketing efforts, or other expenses related to fulfilling pre-orders. It’s completely up to you whether you implement a non-refundable deposit policy.

Charging Tax and Shipping Fees

When using deposit based pre-orders, both shipping and taxes will be charged in the final outstanding amount, not in the deposit amount. Your existing tax and shipping profiles will be respected.

5. Summary and Conclusion

In summary, to use and set up pre-orders on Shopify offers several powerful advantages for ecommerce stores.

  • They provide valuable insight into product demand for pre-order products, enabling stores to predict inventory amount and avoid overproduction.
  • Pre-orders generate anticipation for a product, improving hype for your future releases.
  • Lastly, pre-orders can generate upfront revenue, providing cash flow before product release, something that ecommerce companies of all sizes can get excited about.

If you are interested in giving pre-orders on Shopify a go and experiencing some of these benefits I mentioned above, we’d love you to start a free trial of PreProduct today.

Get the Shopify App

Eliza Wegener

Co-founder @PreProduct

Pre-sell With PreProduct

7 day free trial with all plans

shopify app store badge
different platform badge

How to do pre orders on Shopify

Posted on by admin

Contents

1. Introduction

Pre orders are advance orders placed by consumers for a product or service that is scheduled for future release.

They are a marketing strategy used by e-commerce businesses to enable customers to purchase a product before it is officially released or available for purchase as well as for out of stock products.

Understanding how to do pre-orders on Shopify can be very valuable & useful for your business.

1.1 Pre-order benefits for both businesses and consumers

Customer Commitment: It allows businesses to gauge the level of interest in their product before production or release.

The number of pre-orders can indicate the potential success of the product, and will allow you to make sure you can meet customer demand.

Guaranteed Sales: Firms can secure a certain number of sales even before the product is officially available, helping with revenue generation/cash flow and to manage inventory, which can be very important for smaller or newer businesses.

Marketing and Hype: Pre-orders generate buzz and anticipation around a product, helping to build excitement and anticipation among consumers, as well gauging demand and ensuring there is sufficient interest in a new product before investing in production.

Incentives: Many companies offer incentives to encourage pre-orders, such as exclusive content, discounts, or limited-edition items, to reward early supporters, this also assist in nurturing customer loyalty.

2. How pre orders work

2.1 Announcement

Companies announce their upcoming product or service, providing details about its features, release date, and pricing.

2.2 Pre-Order Period

A specific pre-order period is set during which customers can place their orders. This period typically begins well before the official release date.

2.3 Reservation

Customers interested in the product can place an order, usually through various channels, including online platforms, physical stores, or official websites.

shopping, online, ecommerce

2.4 Payment:

In most cases, customers are required to pay for the product upfront, either in full or a partial payment as a deposit.

2.5 Confirmation:

Customers receive a confirmation of their pre-order, often in the form of an email or a receipt, with details of the purchase.

2.6 Release Date:

On the scheduled release date, the product is officially launched, and customers who pre-ordered it receive their orders. This can be delivered physically or digitally, depending on the nature of the product.

2.7 Additional Benefits

Some companies may offer additional perks to pre-order customers, such as early access, exclusive content, or priority shipping.

3.0 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.

3.1 Capture only pre orders

Capture only 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.

3.2 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.

3.3 Deposit pre orders

Deposit pre order allows you to utilise partial payments, charging the customer for a portion of the purchase price up-front, and then the remaining outstanding amount at a later stage via a deferred charge.

3.4 Charge upfront pre orders

For charge upfront pre order the payment is taken upfront.

4. Setting up Pre Orders on Shopify

4.1 Enabling pre orders in your Shopify online store

Shopify allows businesses to offer pre-orders via a pre-order app. You will need to download and install a pre order app from the Shopify app store.

There are many types of Shopify pre order apps to choose from, and pre order apps offer many different options so make sure you check which will suit your business best.

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. Often this will be in the product template file.
  • Shopify 2.0 theme integration – you will need to drag and drop the app block, from the theme customizer in Shopify admin.

4.2 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, what variants to list for pre-order, whether or not to offer an early bird discount along with pre-order limits and estimated delivery date.

Some apps like our app PreProduct, will allow for pre-ordering for specific variants on Shopify, instead of listing all variants for pre-order. This allows you to just list those variants that may be out of stock, or new variants for pre-order, whilst either still offering other variants for buy now or have them appear as sold out, depending on your business situation.

Early bird discounts, also known as early bird pricing or early bird specials, are promotional offers that businesses use to encourage customers to make purchases or bookings well in advance of a product’s release or an event’s date. These discounts are typically offered for a limited time and are designed to incentivise early action.

PreProduct also allows you to set pre-order limits. Meaning that if you will only able to acquire a certain stock level, or wish to have limited stock available (possibly to create a scarcity mindset) you can set this up.

It is important to set an accurate estimated delivery date, you should also be able to edit the date, if things change, to ensure you are meeting customer expectations.

5. Best Practices for Pre Orders on Shopify

5.1 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
urgent, business, document

5.2 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.

5.3 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.

5.4 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.

cash register, drawer, cash

6. 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.

Pre-sell With PreProduct

7 day free trial with all plans

shopify app store badge
different platform badge

Unbounce Pre-orders

Posted on by admin

Contents

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.
dashboard

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.

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.

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

3. 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’.

Pre-sell With PreProduct

7 day free trial with all plans

shopify app store badge
different platform badge

Adding pre-orders to Shopify Dawn

Posted on by admin

Contents

The Dawn Shopify Theme

Dawn is Shopify’s exciting new theme. As of the end of August 2021, new stores will be set-up with Dawn as default and have access to a bundle of new features which Shopify are calling ‘Store 2.0’. Among these new features is the long rumoured ‘sections anywhere’ ability, speed increases, support for 3d models out of the box and much more. However, the topic of this article is how to add pre-orders to Shopify Dawn. There are many compelling reasons to offer pre-orders, including their positive effects on cash flow, the flexibility they afford your product launches, and the risks they can offset. If you would like to read more about the benefits and strategies of pre-orders, we have an article on why you should take pre-orders on Shopify here.

Dawn theme

ref: Shopify

Adding Pre-orders Manually

I do not recommend this method at all, but realise that some people would prefer to see a free of charge version of offering pre-orders.

Word of warning

It’s possible to start collecting pre-orders without installing any apps or paying a developer to modify Dawn through a very bare-bones approach, although I don’t recommend doing this for several reasons that will be soon become apparent. Here are the steps:

  • Backup your theme. (you should always backup theme files before you change code, so you have a safe version to revert to if something goes wrong).
  • Shopify has a checkbox in the Shopify product admin under ‘inventory’ called ‘continue selling when out of stock’. When checked, your store will accept orders for that product, even when the stock level is 0.
  • You can then made a code change like the below to what text is outputted in your add-to-cart button. You’ll be looking for something similar to the first block of code below; which you’ll want to change to the block below.

Before:

{%- if product.selected_or_first_available_variant.available -%}
  {{ 'products.product.add_to_cart' | t }}
{%- else -%}
  {{ 'products.product.sold_out' | t }}
{%- endif -%}

After:

{%- if product.variants.first.inventory_policy == "continue" and product.variants.first.inventory_quantity == 0 -%}
  pre-order
{%- elsif product.selected_or_first_available_variant.available -%}
  {{ 'products.product.add_to_cart' | t }}
{%- else -%}
  {{ 'products.product.sold_out' | t }}
{%- endif -%}

  • Finally, navigate back to the ‘online store’ screen in Shopify and click ‘Customize’, click through the store preview until you’re looking at your product page. Then click ‘Buy buttons’ from the list of ‘product information’ blocks and uncheck the ‘Show dynamic checkout buttons’ option so that only your main buy button shows up.
Problems with the manual approach

On top of the fact that this option hardcodes a change into your store’s theme and doesn’t localize to the user’s language, it also will mean:

  • Muddled up ‘pre-orders’ and ‘buy-now’ orders in your Shopify order section, leading to mistakes and laborious admin.
  • No efficient control of what’s a pre-order and what’s a ‘buy now’ listing in your store.
  • Your storefront won’t tell customers when they should hope to receive their pre-order.
  • You have no way of communicating with customers during the pre-order process. e.g. ‘Your Red Sneakers are two weeks away from shipping’.
  • Pre-order payment has to be upfront.
  • No way to place limits or any advanced pre-order features on your listing.

All of these drawbacks can very quickly add up to a bad customer experience with a lot of work on your end to stay afloat and in control. Luckily Shopify’s app ecosystem has apps listed by companies who spend their whole time solving these issues and figuring out the best way to increase your pre-orders. The best bit is… thanks to ‘Store 2.0’s new features, you won’t need to write a line of code to integrate one.

Adding a pre-order app

Like I mentioned above, Shopify’s Appstore is home to many pre-order apps that will help you find success with your pre-sales.
PreProduct offers the below benefits, as well as a customisable pre-order cart. However, there are many other good options on the Shopify AppStore. After selecting a pre-order app from the App Store, simply click ‘install app’ from the top of the page and Shopify will take you through a quick install process.

Pre-order app features can include:

  • A user interface to choose which of your product/variants will be on pre-order and when.
  • A designated dashboard for your pre-orders, without regular orders being mixed in.
  • Customisation of the visual design/messaging of the pre-order button and front-end, including real-time variables like shipping time.
  • Email campaigns to keep customers in the loop and engaged throughout the pre-order process.
  • Different pre-order payment options like; ‘pay later’, ‘deposit’ and ‘pay now’ meaning you can list pre-orders earlier and with more flexibility (and in some countries, conform to necessary legal requirements).
  • Analytics and dashboard for reporting/interacting with the individual pre-orders.

Pre ‘Store 2.0’, permanent code had to be added to your store theme to add a pre-order app, resulting in increased setup time while a developer made the integration, as well as the potential for your theme to acquire more and more third-party code as you installed/uninstalled various kinds of apps.
Now Shopify gives store owners the ability to add something called an ‘app block’. Instead of having a developer add permanent code to your theme, you can simply drag and drop a block into your product page. Meaning you’re in complete control of where the pre-order section goes in your storefront, as well as when to take it out.

How to add a pre-order app block to your product page with Dawn

Once you have a pre-order app installed from the Shopify app store, as long as it supports ‘Store 2.0’, you’ll be able to drag it’s block into your product page exactly where you want it. Here’s how:

  • Navigate to the ‘Online store’ section of your Shopify dashboard.
  • Click ‘Customize’
  • You will now be greeted with Shopify’s drag-and-drop editor. It will currently be set to your home page. Click ‘catalogue’ to go to a collection page and then click on any product to select your product page.
  • Notice the different areas of your product page in the left-hand side bar, signified by the tag icon and name in bold. We want to add to your ‘Product Information’ section, so click the blue ‘Add block’ link at the bottom of that list.
  • A pop-up should appear with a list of blocks under the ‘APPS’ heading. Click the pre-order app’s block.
  • The app’s block has now been added to the ‘Product information’ section. To choose it’s position, click the little back arrow to the left of the apps name so you can see all of the product page blocks again. Then hover over the app’s name in the ‘Product information’ section and drag it up or down until you’re happy with its position.
  • That’s it, you should be all good to go. Don’t forget to save! (Top right corner of the page).

Now that you have pre-orders set up on your store, you can start listing new products straight away and promoting them. Whilst there are specific pre-order marketing tactics, we generally find the usual suspects work well. For example, conversion and abandonment optimisation through an app like Tada, organic/paid social media, influencer partnerships, email marketing etc.

Summary

Once you have finished adding pre-order functionality to Shopify Dawn, you can start taking pre-sales straight away for your future and out of stock products. Now that Shopify’s clever ‘sections everywhere’ app blocks have been released, integrating exciting new features into your store has never been easier.

Pre-sell With PreProduct

7 day free trial with all plans

shopify app store badge
different platform badge