My pre-order stock arrived early. How can I bulk change the Shopify order status from "Scheduled" to "Unfulfilled"?

Bulk Changing Pre-Orders from "Scheduled" to "Unfulfilled"

If your preorder stock arrives earlier than expected and you want to ship orders sooner, you may run into an issue where some fulfillment and shipping platforms don’t recognize Shopify’s "Scheduled" order status.

(Since Shopify doesn’t natively support pre-orders, many third-party platforms only process orders marked as "Unfulfilled".)

This means you may be unable to ship until:

  1. You reach the original fulfillment date, or
  2. You manually update each order to "Unfulfilled".

Only after orders are marked as "Unfulfilled" will they appear in your fulfillment platform and be ready for shipping.

Read this article to learn about the differences between the "Scheduled", "Unfulfilled" and "On Hold" order statuses.

Bulk Update Pre-Order Status in Early Bird

With our Early Bird app, you can change the fulfillment date to a past date in your pre-order campaign settings, and all orders will automatically switch to "Unfulfilled".

This way you won't need to manually update orders one by one and your orders will immediately be recognized by your fulfillment system.


  1. Visit our Early Bird app within your Shopify Admin.
  2. Visit the Pre-orders section.
  3. Click on the specific pre-order campaign you'd like to update order statuses for.
  4. Under Pre-order Fulfillment date > Expected Fulfillment date, bring forward the date.
  5. Press Save and the status for your pre-orders in that specific campaign should now be bulk changed from "Scheduled" to "Unfulfilled".
A screenshot of Early Bird shopify preorder app's campaign settings showing the preorder fulfillment section.
In the Pre-order campaign's Fulfillment section, you can choose what order status you'd like to assign to all incoming preorders and what info to show to your customers.

Bulk Sending Pre-Order Update Emails

If you bring forward or delay the fulfillment date in your campaign settings, a banner will appear asking if you’d like to:

  • Update orders only (no customer notification), or
  • Update orders and notify customers (with an editable email).

This works for both early and delayed fulfillment updates.

Screenshot of Shopify preorder app early bird's preorder campaign setting when the preorder fulfillment date has been changed.

If you choose to notify customers, you’ll be able to edit and preview the email before sending.

Screenshot of Early Bird preorder app preorder email update prompt.

Note: Only orders with "Scheduled" status will receive the email updates. Orders already marked as "Unfulfilled" will be skipped.

Need help?

Got further questions? Get in touch with us at support@shopside.com.au and we'd be happy to help!

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