Pre-Order

A purchase functionality that replaces the Add to Cart button with a Pre-order button, so shoppers can buy a product before it's available and have it shipped once it's ready.

Overview & core functionality

Pre-order is purchase functionality in Timesact. It replaces the Add to Cart or Sold Out button on your storefront with a Pre-order button, and sets when the customer is charged and when their order ships.

How it fits into v2

• In v2, functionality and its configuration live inside a customer experience template, which you manage under the Experiences tab. A customer experience template is where you activate and set up the functionality for a campaign.
• Each one is an independent building block. You can run Pre-order on its own, or combine several into one more complex customer experience template (for example Pre-order together with Back in Stock). Not every combination is allowed; some functionality is mutually exclusive, for example Pre-order and Coming Soon cannot both apply to the same product.
• A single variant can have more than one customer experience template attached. They layer and combine, so the functionality from each customer experience template applies together on that variant.
• Pre-order, Backorder, and Made to Order behave the same way. The only difference is the default button and badge label, so you can present products differently (for example "Pre-order" on one set and "Made to order" on another). Every label is editable, so the default text is only a starting point.
• The pre-order's rules live inside the customer experience template. The shipping date, billing policy, and any pre-order discount are all set under Functionality settings (covered below), so there's nothing to set up separately.
• Pre-order availability is evaluated per variant, so the button a shopper sees depends on the selected variant's stock and configuration.
• A customer experience template is reusable. As an example, you build one customer experience template once here, then assign many products to it later, see Adding Products.

Settings and setup

Step 1 — Start from a customer experience template or create your own

Timesact comes with ready-made customer experience templates, so you do not have to set everything up from zero. From the Experiences tab you can:

• Use one of the provided customer experience templates as it is.
• Open a provided customer experience template and edit it to fit your campaign.
• Create your own: click Create Customer Experience, give it a name and an optional description.

Either way, you land on the customer experience template's configuration page.

Step 2 — Add the Pre-order functionality

• On the Functionality tab, click Add functionality.
• Under Purchase, select Pre-order. It will show as Active.
• You can add more functionality to the same customer experience template (for example Back in Stock) and switch between them when configuring the storefront look. Keep in mind that some functionality is mutually exclusive, such as Pre-order and Coming Soon.

Step 3 — Configure the storefront

Product page

At the top of the page you can switch between the functionality you've added, so each one's look is configured separately.

For Pre-order you can configure:

• Button: the pre-order button text (plus In-stock button text and Sold-out button text). Choose Default to use your theme's button styling, or Custom to set your own colors, size and border.
• Message: the message shown for pre-order products. It can include smart variables, which show each variant's own value: {{shippingDate}} (the shipping date), {{daysLeftUntilEndDate}} (days left until the variant's End date), {{preorderQuantity}} (pre-orders the variant can still take) and {{inventoryQuantity}} (the variant's stock in Shopify). This lets one customer experience show a different date or countdown on every product.
• Split payment: how the split payment options look on the product page (description text, size and spacing, radio button styles). This section appears when Billing is set to Split payment.
• Badge — the pre-order badge appearance (disabled by default)
• Timer — an optional countdown timer for pre-order products (disabled by default). See "Setting the countdown timer" below.

Setting the countdown timer

The timer is an optional countdown you can show on the product to build urgency. It works one of two ways, and picking the right one is what makes it show the time you expect:

• Countdown to a date: the timer counts down to a specific end date you choose, for example your pre-order end date. Use this when you have a firm end date.
• Countdown for a fixed time: the timer runs for a set number of minutes, set in Duration (minutes), rather than toward a calendar date.

If your timer is showing a short or unexpected value (like "1h left") when you meant it to run until a date weeks away, it is set to the fixed-length option. Open Product page → Timer, set Timer type to Countdown to a date, choose your End date & time, and save. Then preview the product page in an incognito window to see it counting down to your date.

Pre-order itself has no Notify Me pop-up form, that belongs to Back in Stock and Notify Me. If you want pre-order shoppers to also sign up to be notified, add Notify Me or Back in Stock to the same customer experience template, and the two work together on the product.

Collection page

Configures the storefront on collection pages, with the same building blocks: Button, Message, and Badge.

When the collection-page badge appears

The collection-page badge follows an all-variants rule: it shows on a product's collection card only when every variant of that product is Active for pre-order. If even one variant is still in stock (On standby), the badge stays off on the collection page, even though the badge can still appear on the product page itself. This is intentional. On a collection page a shopper sees a single badge for the whole product, so showing "Pre-order" while some sizes or colours are actually in stock would wrongly suggest the entire product can't be bought right now.

So if your collection-page badge isn't showing:

• In the Timesact app, open the Experiences tab, open the customer experience template attached to the product, go to Collection page → Badge, and confirm the badge is turned on (it's off by default).
• In the Timesact app, open the product from the Products section and check each variant's status. The collection badge appears only when all variants read Active. If any variant is still On standby (for example, still in stock while you're using "Only when out of stock"), the collection badge stays hidden until that variant activates too.
• If you'd like the collection badge to show even when only some variants are on pre-order, reach out to us, that's a small adjustment we can set up for you.

Cart page

Configures how pre-order items are presented in the cart. There are three sections:

• Cart label: the label shown on pre-order line items in the cart (default "Pre-order item delivers as soon as available."), editable in the Pre-order label field. If the template uses Don't use a Shopify purchase option, you set a Property name and Property value instead. They are added to the cart line as a Shopify line item property.
• Cart alert pop-up: an optional pop-up shown when a shopper clicks Pre-order, or when they open the cart, you choose which (disabled by default). When enabled, the customer sees a notice they acknowledge before ordering. Configurable parts:
• Alert content: Alert title, Alert message, Button text, Dismiss option text
• Button styling: Button background color, Button text color
• Trigger settings: Show on button click, Show on cart page
• Mixed cart checkout: an optional pop-up for carts that contain both pre-order and regular items (disabled by default), used to tell the shopper that the whole order ships once the pre-order item is ready. Same configurable parts as the Cart alert pop-up.
• Block checkout (PRO plan): the Mixed cart checkout pop-up is an informational message, and you can also stop the order. Set it up in three steps:

1. In Shopify admin, go to Settings → Checkout → Checkout rules and turn on Timesact Cart Validation. If it isn't listed, click Add rule and select it.
2. Back in Timesact, open Cart page → Mixed cart checkout, and under Block checkout turn on Block checkout when cart mixes pre-order and in-stock items.
3. Edit the wording shoppers see under Checkout error message, then save.

Customers then cannot complete checkout while their cart holds both pre-order and in-stock items. This applies at checkout, including Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay and all express checkouts.

Pre-order terms attach through the cart, so if you run pre-orders it's worth hiding the dynamic checkout buttons on pre-order products, see Testing and Troubleshooting.

Step 4 — Admin settings

Functionality settings

The Pre-order tab in Functionality settings is where you set up how the pre-order works: when customers are charged, when it ships, and any discount. Sections, top to bottom:

• Purchase option: choose how Timesact creates the pre-order in Shopify.
• Use Shopify purchase option (Recommended): supports split payments, scheduled charges and discounts.
• Don't use a Shopify purchase option: works with gift cards, Buy X Get Y, native Shopify bundles and B2B checkout. In this mode the pre-order is charged in full with no pre-order discount, so Billing, Pricing and When to reduce stock are hidden.
• When Pre-order shows: configure when pre-orders are available based on stock status:
• Only when out of stock — 'Pre-order' replaces 'Sold Out' when variant stock in Shopify reaches 0. When stock goes above 0 again, 'Pre-order' is replaced by 'Add to Cart'.
• Always, whatever the stock level — 'Add to Cart/Sold Out' is immediately replaced by 'Pre-order'. You can offer unlimited pre-orders or set a quantity limit (counted per variant, see Pre-order Limit); when the limit is reached, 'Pre-order' reverts to 'Add to Cart/Sold Out'.
• Only while Shopify stock lasts — 'Pre-order' replaces 'Add to Cart' when variant stock is above 0. When stock reaches 0, 'Pre-order' is replaced by 'Sold out' (the customer can no longer order) until inventory goes above 0.
• Shipping — set the shipping date shown to customers:
• As soon as possible — ship as soon as possible
• Exact date — set a specific shipping date
• A set time from checkout — set a shipping period
• A time range from checkout — set a shipping interval
• Fulfillment status: shows how Shopify treats new orders, based on your Shipping choice. As soon as possible gives Unfulfilled. Exact date gives Scheduled, and Shopify opens the order on the shipping date. A set time from checkout or A time range from checkout gives On hold: release it in Shopify, or with Release holds in Pre-order sales, when you're ready to ship. With Don't use a Shopify purchase option, you choose Unfulfilled or On hold yourself, and for On hold you pick Hold pre-order products or Hold the entire order.
• Billing: set the billing policy:
• Full amount — charge the full amount at checkout
• Split payment: charge part of the price at checkout and the rest later. Set First charge as (Percentage or Fixed amount) and First charge (0 takes nothing now), then When to charge the rest: On a specific date, A set time after checkout, or When you fulfill the order (PRO plan). See Billing and Split payments.
• Pricing — set an optional pre-order discount:
• No discount — no discount applied
• Fixed amount off — apply a fixed amount discount
• Percentage off — apply a percentage discount
• When to reduce stock — choose when your available quantity is reduced:
• When the order is placed — reduce your available quantity when the order is placed
• When the order is fulfilled — reduce your available quantity when the order is fulfilled
• Continue selling: a single Turn this on automatically toggle (on by default). While pre-order is active, Timesact turns on Shopify's "Continue selling when out of stock" for the variant, and turns it back off afterwards.

Markets & locations

• Market scope — Global (all markets), Specific countries, or specific Shopify markets
• Inventory location scope — All locations, or Specific locations. Useful if you have multiple warehouses and want stock calculated from selected locations only.

Translations

Lets you translate the functionality's storefront text. Covered in more detail in Translations.

Notifications

Set how the Pre-order emails are sent on the Notifications tab. There are two channels:

Built-in notifications

• Uses Timesact's built-in system. Emails are sent automatically, with no extra setup required.
• The email itself (subject, logo and HTML content) is edited on the Notifications page of the app. That configuration is covered separately in Notifications.

Klaviyo

• Send notifications through Klaviyo for segmentation, personalized messaging, and reporting. Covered in Notifications.

Tag automation

Add products to this customer experience template automatically from a Shopify product tag. See Tag Automation in V2.

Updated on: 11/12/2026