Preorders

You can accept preorders for titles with a future publication date on your website. Preorders can be configured in a variety of ways. You can determine how far out from the publication date preorders are available, limit payment options for preorders, add conditions to shipping methods, make exceptions to when a preorder is available, and customize the availability message.

Only Site Administrators can configure preorder settings. 

Preorder Settings

Set the period, from the current date, within which books are available to preorder. Books with publication dates within this time will have a preorder badge and customers can add these books to their cart and place the preorder. Books outside the period show in search results but customers see the date they will be available for preorder instead of the Add to cart button. Select Commerce in the left menu, select Fulfillment Settings, then select Preorder Settings. Select the period from the Allow Preorder of Books Within menu, then select Save. Select No preorders if you do not want to offer preorders on your website. 

Override Preorder Settings

You may want to make some books with a publication date outside the preorder window to be available for preorder. This is common for popular authors’ books or highly-anticipated releases. For example, the preorder period is set to 3 months but you want to allow customers to preorder one particular title with a publication date that is 6 months out. Search for the book, select it, and select Edit to access the book’s product page. Scroll down, select Store details, then select Allow Preorders, and select Save to save the book product changes. Customers can now preorder the book outside of the default period. 

Preorder Payment Settings

Having customers pay for a preorder when they place an order is common and is particularly important for store pickup and offsite pickup orders. To accommodate this, you can choose not to offer the pay at store option for preorders.

Select Commerce in the left menu, select E-commerce Settings, select Payment, select Pay at Store is only for products that are not pre-orders, and scroll to the bottom and select Save to disable the pay at store payment method for preorders. If any product in a customer's cart is a preorder, they will not see the pay at store payment method.  

Preorder Shipment Method Settings

You can add conditions to flat-rate shipping methods for preorders. For example, you may not want to allow the Media Mail shipping method for preorders. Select Commerce in the left menu, select E-commerce Settings, select Shipping, select Shipping Methods page, then select Edit in the Operations column for the Media Mail (or the shipping method you want to add the preorder condition to). Select Products - Preorder title from the Conditions menu, select Add, then check the Negate box, and select Save to save the shipping method. 

Preorder Book Availability Message

You can customize the message customers see when books are available for preorder. Select Commerce in the left menu, select Fulfillment Settings, then select Book Availability Messages. Enter the message you want customers to see in Book is available for preorder, then scroll to the bottom and select Save to save the message.