To take pre-orders with a real delivery date, give the product the date its stock arrives. Customers can then only choose that day or later, the calendar tells them it’s a pre-order, and each delivery day still takes no more than you can send. If stock is late, move the date and Dalbie Dates offers to move every order booked too early in one go.
Pre-orders are on every paid plan, from Starter.
Dalbie Dates handles the dates and capacity, not payment. Customers pay at checkout as usual, so if you take deposits or charge later, use a pre-order app for that alongside Dalbie Dates.
Set a delivers-from date
Open Products in Dalbie Dates and choose the product.
Under Pre-order, enter the date stock arrives in Delivers from and save. With several variants, set one date for every variant, or a date for each, such as only the colour that’s out of stock.
Leave the date empty to sell it normally again. Once the date has passed, it sells as usual anyway.
Customers can only book as far ahead as your booking window in Settings. If the delivers-from date is further ahead than that, the product page tells you when customers can start pre-ordering, such as 1 Nov for a 1 Feb date with a 3-month window.
On your store, the calendar for that product starts at the delivers-from date and shows “Pre-order: delivery from Sat 14 Nov.” A cart with a pre-order in it says “Includes a pre-order”, and its first date is the latest delivers-from date in the cart.
Limit a pre-order batch
If the first delivery is a batch of 40, add a shared limit across dates: one limit for a run of dates, such as 40 across 14 to 30 November. Every order on any of those days takes from the same 40, and the dates close once they’re gone. Daily limits still apply on top. See Daily and product limits, and availability windows.
When stock is late
Change the delivers-from date to the new one and save. Dalbie Dates lists the product’s orders still booked before it and offers to move them all to the new date. Each is checked like a single date change: their counts, tags, “Delivery date” and “Fulfill by” move with them. If the new date has a problem for an order, such as being full, it’s listed for you to confirm or change on its own.
Customers aren’t emailed yet, so let them know their new date.
Questions
Can I take pre-orders on a product that’s out of stock in Shopify? Turn on Continue selling when out of stock for the product in Shopify, so customers can buy it before stock arrives.
Do pre-orders work with daily and product limits? Yes. A pre-order takes a place on its delivery day like any order, and its product limit counts its units.
Does it work with several locations? Yes. The delivers-from date applies at every location. See Deliver from several locations on Shopify.