Inventory and Fulfillment

How a pre-order is fulfilled, when its inventory is reserved, and how out-of-stock items stay buyable. These are reusable pre-order building blocks, for the overview see How Pre-Orders Work. Set under Feature settings.

Deferred fulfillment

A pre-order is placed now but fulfilled later. The shipping date you set is carried on the selling plan and shown to the customer so they know when to expect the item. When your stock arrives, you fulfill the order like any normal order. Nothing ships until you fulfill it.

Inventory Policy: On Sale vs On Fulfillment

This controls when a pre-order counts against your inventory.

• On Sale — inventory is reserved when the order is placed. Use it when each pre-order should immediately reduce the stock you are counting on, so your numbers reflect commitments as they come in.
• On Fulfillment — inventory is reserved when the order is fulfilled. Use it when you do not want pre-orders touching inventory until you actually ship.

Scenario: you are pre-selling a product that has not been manufactured yet. On Fulfillment keeps your inventory untouched until the goods arrive and you fulfill the orders.

Continue selling

For the out-of-stock stock modes, a variant at 0 inventory would normally be unbuyable in Shopify. The Continue selling auto-enable toggle handles this: when the pre-order activates, Timesact switches the variant to "Continue selling when out of stock" so customers can still place the pre-order, and reverts it when the pre-order deactivates.

• Without it: an out-of-stock pre-order variant can show Sold Out and block the sale even though you intended it to be a pre-order.
• With it: the variant stays buyable while it is a pre-order, and returns to normal Shopify behavior afterward.

Scenario: a variant is set to pre-order when out of stock. It sells down to 0. With Continue selling on, shoppers keep seeing the Pre-Order button and can reserve it. Turn the pre-order off later and the variant goes back to standard Shopify behavior.

Related

• When the pre-order shows based on stock: Stock Management.
• When the customer is told it ships: Shipping dates
• Overview of all the building blocks: How Pre-Orders Work

Updated on: 07/01/2026