Why does Early Bird turn off most sales channels when I create a pre-order campaign?

When you create a Shopify pre-order campaign in Early Bird, you might notice that most of your Shopify sales channels get turned off automatically, leaving only your Online Store and Custom Storefront active. This happens due to Shopify platform limitations with pre-orders and selling plans, not Early Bird restrictions.

Understanding Shopify's pre-order limitations across sales channels

Shopify's pre-order features and selling plans only integrate properly with your main online storefront - other sales channels don't support the pre-order functionality yet.

Early Bird automatically enables Shopify's "Only sell the product with a Selling Plan" setting for pre-order campaigns (displayed to you as "Only sell this product as a subscription"), which limits where your pre-order products can be sold. We do this to protect your customers from confusion and prevent support issues.

The key issue: If customers place orders through unsupported sales channels (like Point of Sale, Shop Pay, TikTok Shop, third-party marketplaces etc.), they won't see any pre-order information. They'll think they're buying an in-stock item and expect immediate shipping, which leads to customer frustration, or worse, order cancellations.

Shopify product editor showing Purchase options section with a pre-order campaign for 'Q3 2024 - C3Strom Bikes Limited Pre-orders'. Two bullet points list payment options: 'Pay in full today and get 20% off' and 'Pay a 50% deposit to reserve your electric bike'. Below is an expandable section for 'Subscriptions, preorders, try before you buy, and more'. At the bottom, a checkbox is selected for 'Only sell this product as a subscription'.
When this option is checked, customers can only purchase the product through the defined purchase options, and won't be able to buy it as a standard one-time purchase.

Which sales channels stay active vs turned off

When you create a pre-order campaign, Early Bird ensures only these sales channels remain active:

✅ Stays Active:

  • Online Store (your main Shopify storefront)
  • Custom Storefront (if you have one)

❌ Gets Turned Off:

  • Buy Button (embedded on external websites)*
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • Facebook & Instagram
  • TikTok
  • Google & YouTube
  • Point of Sale (POS)
  • And any other third-party sales channels

*While Buy Buttons are technically turned off, some of our merchants have successfully implemented custom scripts to make them work with pre-orders. However, this requires technical development and isn't supported out-of-the-box.

This happens because Shopify's pre-order features and selling plans only work properly on your main online storefront - this is a Shopify platform limitation, not an Early Bird restriction.

What happens if customers order through unsupported channels

If you manually re-enable other sales channels after creating your campaign, several problems can occur:

  • No pre-order indication: Products appear as regular in-stock items
  • Wrong customer expectations: Customers expect immediate shipping
  • Missing Early Bird tracking: Orders won't be tracked in Early Bird
  • Payment timing issues: Customers might be charged immediately instead of following your pre-order payment schedule
  • Customer service problems: Confused customers will contact you asking why their "in-stock" order hasn't shipped

Back-orders work differently

If you're running back-orders (not pre-order campaigns), Early Bird doesn't limit sales channels because back-orders are treated as normal in-stock products until inventory reaches zero. This means customers can purchase through any sales channel as usual.

Can I re-enable other sales channels after publishing?

Yes. While technically possible, we don't recommend it. You can untick "Only sell the product with a Selling Plan" after publishing your campaign, but this removes all pre-order protections and functionality on those channels.

If you do this:

  • Orders from other channels won't be tracked in Early Bird
  • Customers won't see pre-order information
  • Payment schedules may not work correctly
  • You'll likely receive confused customer inquiries

Best practice recommendations

For pre-order campaigns:

  • Keep sales channels limited to Online Store and Custom Storefront only
  • Promote your pre-orders through your main website, organic social and EDM
  • Use social media to drive traffic to your online store rather than selling directly through those platforms

For wider reach:

  • Consider running regular inventory sales through multiple channels
  • Use pre-orders primarily on your main storefront where you have full control over the customer experience

Understanding Shopify's selling plans limitation

This behavior isn't specific to Early Bird - it's a Shopify platform limitation that affects all pre-order solutions. Shopify's selling plans (which power pre-orders) only integrate with the main online storefront. Until Shopify expands this functionality to other sales channels, this limitation will remain across all pre-order apps.

Early Bird works within these Shopify constraints to provide you and your customers the best possible pre-order experience where it's fully supported.

For more information about pre-order requirements, see What are the requirements for pre-orders on Shopify?. Check out our YouTube video on pre-order best practices as well.

Need help?

If you have questions about sales channel settings for your pre-order campaigns, feel free to If you have any questions about any of the above, or need help with something not covered here, we’ll be here to assist. You can use the Help Chat bubble on this page, in-app, or connect with us at support@shopside.com.au!

Last updated on May 30, 2025

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