What is the difference between Shopify pre-orders and back-orders?

Understanding Pre-orders and its benefits

A pre-order product is one which you have a clear expected production/ship timeline for and are offering customers the chance to reserve their product in advance. These products have usually never been stocked on your Shopify store before.

This can be useful for gauging/forecasting inventory demand for products and specific variants, before you release a new drop, or for meeting higher MOQs (minimum order quantity) to negotiate with your supplier to reduce the cost per unit.

Understanding Back-orders and its benefits

A back-order product is one which has sold out, and doesn't necessarily have a set restock date. You can offer customers the option to purchase out of stock items and fulfil them once stock comes in, or is ordered from your supplier.

This is useful to ensure you never miss a sale even when your products have sold out before you're able to restock them. You should let your customers know when these back-orders might be fulfilled. Customer expectation management is key.

If you have a reliable supplier and a quick, consistent turnaround time for back-orders, you could also present these as regular products, with perhaps a slightly longer shipping time.

Which approach is right for your Shopify store?

You should run pre-orders if:

✅ You're running pre-orders for 5-50 products

✅ You need partial deposits or deferred payments

✅ You're comfortable selecting products for pre-orders individually

✅ You want specific launch dates for upcoming products

✅ You need advanced pre-order features

Trade-off: Manual product selection (no bulk select)

You should run backorders if:

✅ You have 100+ products to manage

✅ You need a quick setup across your entire catalog

✅ You don't need partial payment features

✅ You want all payment methods supported (Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc.)

✅ You want full discount compatibility (including Buy X Get Y)

Trade-off: No partial payments or deferred payment options

In cases like these, you'd want to use back-orders as a workaround (and use a pre-order app like ours to customise the labels and badges to make it look like a pre-order on your storefront).

Here's a 5-minute video on how to setup back-orders through our Early Bird app:

We also highly recommend you watch our video on all the things you need to consider before running a Coming Soon waitlist + pre-order campaign on Shopify:

Need help?

If you have any further questions about the difference between Shopify pre-orders and backorders, or need help with something not covered here, please reach out via support@shopside.com.au!