How to Set Up Pre-Orders on Shopify Without Overselling

Pre-orders let customers buy a product before it's in stock: an upcoming launch, a restock that's on the way, or a popular item you've temporarily sold out of. Done well, they turn "out of stock" into revenue and tell you how much demand exists before your inventory even arrives. Done with the common shortcut, they quietly cause overselling and refunds.

The overselling trap

The quickest way to "enable pre-orders" on Shopify is to turn on "Continue selling when out of stock" and relabel the buy button. It looks fine, but it has a real problem: it relies on the product page's button to manage the pre-order. Express checkouts like Shop Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay can bypass that button entirely and add the item through the normal cart.

The effect is that you can sell more units than you intend to, with no clear record of which orders are pre-orders. That means manual untangling, delayed fulfillment, and refunds: the opposite of what you wanted.

The right way: native selling plans

Shopify has a proper system for this called selling plans (part of its purchase options framework). A pre-order built on a selling plan is recognized by Shopify at the platform level, so it works correctly through every checkout path, Shop Pay included. The order is clearly marked as a pre-order, the customer pays at checkout, and you fulfill it when stock arrives.

This is the difference between a pre-order that's a label on a button and one that's a real, tracked purchase option. The second kind doesn't oversell.

How to set it up

• Install a pre-order app that uses Shopify's native selling plans (not the "continue selling" inventory trick).
• In the app, turn on pre-orders for the specific products you want to offer.
• Add the app's pre-order button block to your product page in the theme editor, the same way you'd add any theme block. No code needed.
• On sold-out products you've enabled, shoppers now see a clear "Pre-order" button, and the resulting orders are labeled so you can fulfill them when inventory lands.

What to look for in an app

• Native selling plans. This is the single most important thing. If an app is just toggling "continue selling," it can oversell. If it uses selling plans, it won't.
• Clear order labeling. Pre-orders should be obviously marked so your fulfillment process treats them correctly.
• Predictable pricing. Flat pricing beats per-order fees or a cut of pre-order revenue.