Preorders
Preorders
Preorders are products customers can buy now but ship later (for example, a launch on a specific date). Payment is captured at checkout as normal; the shipment is held in the OMS and not sent to your fulfillment service until the release date.
Marking a product as a preorder
Open the product in Products → [product] and set the Preorder Release Date field. From the moment that date is set, any new order containing this product is held — it stays in the OMS but is not sent to your fulfillment service until the release date.
If a product has no release date, or the date is today/past, it ships normally.
The Preorders dashboard
Orders → Preorders
This page lists every held preorder shipment so you can see what's pending. Use it to:
- Filter by product — narrow to a single preorder product.
- Filter by release date — drill in from the calendar to see everything releasing on a given day.
- See the pending count — how many shipments are waiting to release.
- Send one order early — click Send on a single row.
- Send several at once — tick the checkboxes (or Select all) and click Send Selected.
Calendar View
Click Calendar View to see upcoming preorder volume by release date. Each day shows the number of held shipments releasing that day; click a day to jump to that day's preorders in the list. The calendar is read-only — release orders from the list view.
Audit Trail
When you manually send a preorder before its date, the OMS records:
- Who released it (your admin email)
- When you released it
- The release date that was in effect at the time
You can see these audit fields on the order's detail page. This is useful for resolving customer questions later ("why did mine ship on Tuesday?").
Mixed orders & split shipments
By default, if an order contains both in-stock items and a preorder item, the whole order is held together until the preorder releases — the in-stock items wait too.
Your store can optionally turn on split shipments, which ships the in-stock items right away and holds only the preorder items:
- In-stock items go into a shipment that ships immediately.
- Each preorder item is held in its own shipment until its release date.
- Items with different release dates each get their own shipment.
Shipping is charged once per order; the held preorder shipment ships at no additional shipping cost.
Automatic release
If you do nothing, preorder shipments are released to your fulfillment service automatically on or after their release date — the same background job that handles normal fulfillment picks them up.
Troubleshooting
An order is paid but the preorder hasn't shipped
Check in this order:
- Is it still a future release date? If any line-item product has a future Preorder Release Date, the shipment is held on purpose until that date. You can force-release it from Orders → Preorders with Send.
- Is the shipment ready? Open the order; the shipment must be in the Ready state.
- Is the stock location set up to fulfill? The shipment's stock location must be routed to a fulfillment service in Settings → Stock Locations.
- Approved and out of the hold window? Orders are held for a short window after checkout (default ~60 minutes). Check the order's completion time.
If none of the above explains it, contact engineering with the order number.
I released a preorder early but it didn't ship
Sending only removes the preorder hold. The shipment still has to be Ready, on a stock location routed to a fulfillment service, and outside the hold window. If those are all true and it still hasn't gone, see the checklist above.
The in-stock items in a mixed order aren't shipping
Without split shipments, an order containing a preorder item is held as a whole until the preorder releases. Turn on split shipments (see Mixed orders & split shipments) to ship the in-stock items right away and hold only the preorder items.
I cleared a product's release date but old orders still show as preorders
Held shipments become eligible to ship on the next fulfillment run after the date is cleared or moved to today/past. There may be a short delay until that run.
FAQ
Does the customer see anything different at checkout?
No. The preorder hold happens after the order is placed. Customers check out normally.
Does enabling preorders change anything for products that aren't preorders?
No. Products without a release date ship exactly as they do today. The preorder hold and split-shipment behavior only apply to products you've given a future release date.
Can I bulk-release every held preorder at once?
Yes — use the Send Selected bulk action on the Preorders page. There's no separate "release all" button; this is deliberate, so you have to confirm what you're releasing.
A customer ordered an in-stock item and a preorder item — why hasn't the in-stock item shipped?
Without split shipments, an order containing a preorder item is held as a whole until the preorder releases. Turn on split shipments to ship the in-stock items right away and hold only the preorder items.