If you have an online store, you may be familiar with the term “pre-order.” But what does that mean, and how does that affect your business? Pre-ordering is a simple way to reserve a product that isn’t yet for sale. This can be a great way for online stores to get people excited about a product before it comes out. Pre-orders can be a great way to get people excited about a new product, and they can also help you figure out if a product is popular enough to stock before you spend money on it. By taking pre-orders, you also don’t have to guess how many units to buy because you already know the exact number:
Have you ever run out of products to sell on your online store? Or maybe you don’t have enough money to keep making your products. Or maybe you just want to make a great new product that will change the world?
Adding a “pre-order” button and items that can be ordered ahead of time will be the best thing for your online store. By starting pre-orders, you’ll be able to sell things you don’t yet have. Your customers might be able to buy a certain product before it’s ready to ship or even before it’s been made.
What “Pre-Order” Really Means
A pre-ordered product is just an item for sale on your eCommerce site that isn’t in stock but will be at a certain date. When you add pre-orders to your online store, customers can get the items they want by reserving them before they are officially available. This way, they don’t have to worry about the items selling out before they can get them.
Pre-orders have been used by many stores and providers for years, like in the music and video game industries. How do shops benefit from pre-orders? First, they tell stores and service providers a lot about how popular certain products are right now. Second, they promise a certain amount of income and money.
Pre-orders can be used well in any business, from selling hand-made items to selling expensive clothing to selling video games. Apple is one of many well-known stores that uses pre-orders to make new products and ship them to different places based on what people there want.
Pre-orders are a great way for musicians, writers, developers, and artists to get money for their projects and for new companies to save money.
Let’s look at what’s good and bad about it:
The pros and cons of pre-ordering
If you do pre-ordering right, your sales and reputation can go through the roof. But to do that, you need to manage it well. If you don’t, it could hurt the reputation of your website and store. So, think about these things before adding a “Pre-Booking or Pre-Ordering Button” to your store:
PROS:
- Pre-orders make sure that you’ll make a certain amount of money and sell a certain number of items in that time.
- This can be used as a survey for your store or website to find out how people buy things and what the market wants. Also, you can figure out who the ideal customer is for a certain product.
- You can get people excited about your store by taking pre-orders, which let you market the product and the store on a large scale.
- Because of Pre-Orders, the people who sell the products don’t have to worry about unsold or leftover stock.
CONS:
- Pre-orders can’t be seen as a complete and reliable way to make an online business successful. It guarantees a certain number of product sales, but that’s not enough if you want to increase sales.
- The product’s turnaround time is set by the manufacturer, and if your supplier cancels or delays it, your online business could lose customers and credibility. Before you put the date on your store, you need to know the exact date when the product will be released and available for your stock.
- If you use eBay or Amazon, pre-orders won’t work because those sites have strict rules about how quickly they can ship. If you are late and customers say bad things about you, you could lose your account.
Have you decided that pre-orders are the right way to do things? Read on to learn how to use them well for your eCommerce store.
How to Increase Sales with a Pre-Order Button
Many companies make money by letting people know about a product before it comes out. Before putting a lot of money into their business, business owners can take a look at the market. You can also use pre-ordering this way when you find out from your dealer that your big order might be late by several days. Customers can place a backorder by clicking on the Book Now button. You can also use the pre-order feature to get the attention of the target market before an item is made.
Always let your customers know when the product will be back in stock.
You can use a simple pop-up to get the e-mail addresses of customers who want to know when the product will be available. You’ll know exactly how many customers need to be notified, and you’ll be able to plan for future stock orders.
Always only let people pre-order something new.
People who shop online want to be the first to get a hot new item. If you know that this kind of product will be coming soon but won’t be in stock for a few weeks, you can sell it early and catch your customers’ attention by giving them the option to pre-order it. This will help you figure out how big your next order needs to be.
The advertising of pre-orders
If you want people to pre-order a product that just came out, you should make people excited about it and get more people to your website. Think about running paid ad campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to reach the people you want to reach.
How to Talk to Customers
It is also important to let your current customers know about pre-orders. You should send an email to everyone on your list of subscribers. You should also come up with a plan for what to do if there are delays in making or shipping the product. You want to get the word out to your current and potential customers using email or social media.
How the order can be cancelled by the customer (If cancellation available)
Include all of the important information on a pre-order page.
You can put “pre-order” in the name of the product so that your customer will see it in the order confirmation email and the delivery notice.
You must also include the expected delivery date for pre-orders and more information about how pre-orders work, or a link to a page with that information.
Keep return or cancellation dates short.
Don’t keep your clients waiting too long. You should remember a time frame between two weeks and two months. With this kind of timeline, pre-orders work just fine. If you keep pushing your products for more than three months to a year, your customers might lose interest or forget about their order.
Proper Pre-Order Payment Strategy
For Pre-Order money collection, you can use one or two Payment Methods.
While this item is in stock, let your customers place orders and ask to be charged. The biggest problem is that your customers can change their minds at any time and cancel pre-orders.
Authorize your customer’s credit card information and charge it automatically while the product ships.
Requesting full payment up front isn’t always a good idea because many customers don’t feel comfortable doing it, but you can use this payment method when you’re selling special or valuable items.
How to Start Pre-Orders in Your Online Store
If a business owner uses a pre-order extension, they can add a pre-order function to their store, even if their store is run on a different eCommerce system. If you’re running an eCommerce store on Shopify, there are a lot of plugins that will let you give your customers the option to pre-order. These apps have many great features, such as automatic e-mail notifications, pre-order now buttons that can be changed, analytics, and more.
Shopify Pre-Order Manager by Dropship Corporation works well with all kinds of topics and different apps for keeping track of stock. It makes it easy to take orders for items that you don’t have in stock by automatically changing the “Add to cart” button to “Pre-order.” You can also choose which items to add to your save or which editions of those items you want to pre-order. With geo-proximity, you can only turn on the pre-order option for certain countries.
So, to run a successful Pre-Orders campaign, there are three main things you need to do.
- Create a lot of excitement by using multiple channels or social media.
- Tell your customers on the product page when the item will be shipped.
- Keep in touch with people who placed pre-orders.
Most products won’t sell themselves, so you should combine your marketing and promotion efforts to make sure your pre-orders do well. If you use pre-orders well, they can be a simple and effective way to bring in more money and grow your eCommerce business.
Conclusion
In conclusion, pre-ordering can be a great way to get people excited about a new product and generate sales before it comes out. But it’s important to carefully plan your pre-order campaign and make sure you can fulfil all of the orders you get.
If you don’t, it could hurt the reputation of your store and hurt your business. Pre-ordering, on the other hand, can be a great way to help your business succeed if you plan and do it well.
