Accept preorders from POS, Shop app and other sales channels (Essential Preorder app)

This article explains what happens when a customer buys a preorder product outside your Online Store, for example at your Shopify POS, in the Shop app, through Shopify Inbox, or from a Facebook & Instagram or TikTok shop. It covers the Accept preorders in channels setting, what it does and does not do, and how to check why a channel order was not marked as a preorder.

If you want to change how the preorder button looks in your Online Store, see Style preorder button, badge and price instead.

The short version

• Essential Preorder changes the Add to cart button into a Preorder button in your Online Store only. Other sales channels show the normal buy button. We cannot change that; each channel controls its own buttons.
• You can still tell the app to treat orders from other channels as preorders. Tick the channel under Accept preorders in channels on the campaign. The app then catches the order after the sale, tags it, adds it to your Preorders list and applies your fulfilment setting.
• This is available on the Starter plan and up.

Where the setting is

1. In Essential Preorder, open Campaigns and click the campaign.
2. On the Content tab, scroll to Accept preorders in channels.
3. Online store is always ticked. Below it, under Other channels, you see every sales channel installed on your store, for example Shop, Inbox, Point of Sale, Facebook & Instagram, Google & YouTube, TikTok.
4. Tick the channels you want and Save.

If a channel you use is not in the list, it is not installed as a Shopify sales channel on your store. Marketplaces that push orders into Shopify through their own app (for example Etsy or Amazon integrations) do not appear here and are not supported.

If the boxes are greyed out, your plan does not include this feature. Click Upgrade to Starter to unlock it. Moving back to the Free plan clears all ticked channels.

What happens when a channel is ticked

When an order comes in from a ticked channel and it contains a product from the campaign, the app:

• adds the campaign's order tags and customer tags (or the default Essential Preorder tag if you set none),
• shows the order in your Preorders list in the app,
• counts it toward your plan's monthly preorder quota,
• puts the order on hold in Shopify if the campaign's fulfilment setting is On hold and the order is not fulfilled yet,
• sends the preorder confirmation email if you have it switched on and the order has a customer email attached.

The campaign's inventory rule still applies. For an Out of stock campaign the app checks the stock at your locations that fulfil online orders. If the product was still in stock there when the order came in, the order is a normal order, not a preorder.

What does not happen in other channels

We do not control the other channel's checkout, so in POS, Shop, Inbox and social shops:

• the Preorder button, badge and message do not show. The product looks like a normal in stock item,
• partial payments and deposits do not apply. The customer pays the full price,
• preorder quantity limits are not enforced. Shopify's own inventory settings decide how many can be sold,
• campaign discounts do not apply.

If it matters that your customer knows they are buying a preorder, tell them in the product description, in the channel's own product notes, or at the counter.

Point of Sale notes

• A POS sale completed at the counter is fulfilled immediately, so the On hold fulfilment setting has no effect on it. The hold only applies when staff choose Ship to customer or Pick up later at checkout.
• The app checks stock at locations that fulfil online orders. If your POS location is set to in store only in Shopify, stock at that location is not counted. Check Settings > Locations in your Shopify admin if POS sales are being marked as preorders unexpectedly.

A channel order was not marked as a preorder

Check these in order:

1. Which channel did the order come from? Open the order in your Shopify admin. The sales channel is shown at the top of the order page.
2. Is that channel ticked under Accept preorders in channels on the campaign that contains the product? Each campaign has its own ticks.
3. Is your plan Starter or higher? On Free and Lite the setting is off.
4. Was the product out of stock at your online locations when the order came in? For Out of stock campaigns, an order placed while stock was above zero is not a preorder.

Still stuck? Send us the order number and the campaign name and we will check it for you.