5 Tips for Running a Pre-Order Sale on Shopify

If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance you already have a way to setup Pre-Orders in Shopify. If not, checkout our FREE Pre-Order Manager app on Shopify.


When combined with an effective marketing strategy, Pre-Order sales have consistently proven to be a great way to increase order volume and product interest over time. While you’re planning your Pre-Order sales campaign, here’s a few things you’ll want to incorporate or keep in mind.

5 Tips for running a pre-order sale on Shopify:

1. Clearly outline the Pre-Order terms.

Set clear terms for your pre-orders from the get-go to ensure your customers know what to expect when they make a purchase. Important details like the release and shipping dates should be clearly stated on your product pages. Plus any additional Pre-Order specific terms or conditions should be mentioned or linked to.

Setting customer expectations will help you avoid/mitigate time spent answering customer questions, and can even help to boost buyer confidence when considering a purchase. Here’s a few questions customers are likely to ask about Pre-Orders:

  • Can I get a refund if I change my mind?
  • When is my credit card charged for a pre-order?
  • Can I return a Pre-Orders once I’ve it?
  • Is there a limit on the number of Pre-Orders I can make?

2. Consider offering a Discount or Bonus as part of the Pre-Order’s.

Whilst the ability to secure a product early is enticing enough for some, if you’re able to add a discount (5%-10% is good, depending on your margins) or Early-Shipping offer as part of the Pre-Order, this can go a long way to helping get more customers over the line and increase orders.

One great aspect of the Shopify Pre-Order Manager app, is that you can create discounts for your Pre-Orders and track sale analytics all in one place.

3. Leverage Scarcity to help boost sales.

In consumer psychology it’s been proven that we, as consumers, tend to give more value to items that are more scarce than in abundance. With that in-mind, there are a few sales tactics you can leverage to help make your Pre-Order sales more enticing:

  • Highlight the remaining Pre-Order’s available for order.
  • Add a Countdown timer to your product page.
  • Show how many Pre-Orders have been made to date.
  • Offer a Pre-Order discount.

Note: If you’d like to ensure that no single customer makes an outstanding number of pre-orders, the Pre-Order Manager app lets you add customer order limits.

4. Plan your marketing and sales timeline accordingly.

While this part is fairly obvious, it’s no less important and perhaps we can give you some additional ideas for marketing channels. In fact, it’s been found that for some industries 28% of total Pre-Orders were produced on the first day of Pre-Order availability.

Depending on how much traffic you currently generate through your store and marketing channels will largely dictate the effectiveness and overall Return on Investment of your Pre-Order sale. While you may already be using or considering channels such as paid, email, and social media marketing, also consider small advertising hacks like adding banners to your homepage or relevant collections to help boost awareness.

When planning your Pre-Order sale timeline consider things like:

  • When will you announce the pre-order?
  • What Marketing Channels will you utilize to generate awareness?

5. Learn from the best in your Industry.

Think about the leading brand in your industry or niche, what was the latest successful product they released. If they offered a pre-order think about: How soon from release did they announce the pre-order? What marketing channels did they focus on? What offers did they include with the pre-order?

Customers can have differing behaviours across industries and niches, by analyzing what your competitors are doing and finding ways you can improve on them is a great strategy to help your sale campaign succeed before it’s even started.