Testing and Troubleshooting

How to test a customer experience template before you launch it, and how to fix the most common things that look wrong. Almost everything comes down to a variant's status, its stock, or where the customer experience template is scoped, all of which you can check yourself in a couple of minutes.

Before you go live

Run through this quick checklist on any product you are about to launch:

• The customer experience template has the feature you want, and that feature shows as Active on the Features tab.
• The product is attached to the customer experience template (from the Products section), and its Start Date has been reached.
• The product is Active (published) in Shopify, not Draft or archived. A Draft product has no live storefront page, so no feature can appear on it, publish it first, then check the storefront.
• The variant reads Active where you expect the feature to show, not Pending. Active means it is live now, Pending means the customer experience template is set up but its stock condition is not met yet.
• The variant's Shopify stock matches the Stock Management mode you chose (see the per-feature notes below).
• If you use Specific countries, Shopify markets, or Specific locations, your store is on the PRO plan, those need it.
• If you added a language, it is published in Shopify and the customer experience template's text is translated in Translate & Adapt.

How to test

1. Preview in a fresh session

Open the product page in an incognito or private window. This skips any cached session and shows the storefront the way a real shopper sees it.

2. Check each variant

What shows is decided per variant, so the button depends on the selected variant. Open the product, then switch between variants (sizes, colours) and watch the button and badge change. You can also jump straight to a specific variant by adding its ID to the URL, for example /products/your-product?variant=1234567890.

3. Know what each state should look like

• Active variant: the feature button and message appear (plus the badge or timer, if you turned them on).
• Pending variant: the storefront still shows the normal Add to Cart or Sold Out, because the stock condition is not met yet.
• A variant with no feature attached: normal Add to Cart or Sold Out, untouched.

This is all expected. A product that mixes Active and Pending variants will change appearance as you switch variant.

4. Place a test order

Confirm the whole flow, including checkout, with a real test order. Two easy ways:

• Shopify's Bogus Gateway, which simulates payment with no real charge. Remember to turn test mode back off afterwards, customers cannot place real orders while it is on. See Shopify's guide: Shopify test orders.
• Or, on your live store, create a 100% discount code and use it to place a real checkout at no cost, then delete the code afterwards. Handy when you do not want to switch your payment provider into test mode.

5. Check the order

After the test order, open it in Shopify and confirm the pre-order or feature applied as expected, then check Analytics for the recorded event. Cancel and refund any test order you placed through a real provider.

6. Test notifications

If you use Built-in emails, open the notification and click Send Test. If you route through Klaviyo or Shopify Flow, use their own preview and test tools.

7. Test per market (if you scope by market)

If a customer experience template is scoped to specific countries or Shopify markets, test from that market, for example with your store's country or market selector, so you see the version a shopper there gets.

Troubleshooting

The button does not change to the feature button

• Likely cause: the variant is Pending, not Active, so its stock condition is not met. Or the product is not attached to the customer experience template, the Start Date has not been reached, or the shopper's market is not in the customer experience template's scope.
• Fix: open the product in the Products list and check the variant's status. For a feature that turns on when out of stock (Pre-Order in that mode, Coming Soon, Back in Stock), the variant's stock must be 0. For Low Stock, the available quantity must be at or below your Quantity Threshold. For Pre-Order set to "regardless of levels," it should be Active straight away. If stock looks right and it is still Pending, check that the inventory location scope is reading the location that actually holds the stock.

The Pre-Order button shows Sold Out, or the item won't add to cart, even though the variant is Active

• Likely cause: for the out-of-stock pre-order modes, a variant at 0 stock stays buyable only because Shopify's "Continue selling when out of stock" is switched on. Timesact turns this on automatically when the pre-order activates, but another inventory or fulfillment app, or a manual edit in Shopify, can switch it back off. When it's off, Shopify treats the 0-stock variant as unavailable, so it shows Sold Out or errors on add to cart, even while Timesact still reads the variant as Active.
• Fix: in your Shopify admin, go to Products and open the product, then select the affected variant. In the variant's Inventory section, tick Continue selling when out of stock, and save. Re-check the storefront in an incognito window, the Pre-Order button should now add to cart. If it keeps switching off, an inventory or fulfillment app is most likely turning it back off after each sync, so check that app's settings. Avoid disabling "Continue selling" store-wide to fix a single variant, since that affects every active pre-order variant. If you're not sure which app is responsible, reach out to us with the product link and we'll help track it down.

The badge is not showing

• Likely cause: the badge is off by default on every feature.
• Fix: open the customer experience template, go to Product page (and Collection page too, if you want it there), open the Badge section for that feature, and turn it on. The badge only appears on Active variants, so also confirm the variant's status as above.
• On collection pages specifically, the badge appears only when every variant of the product is Active. If one variant is still Pending, the collection badge stays hidden even though the product-page badge can show. See Pre-Order → Collection page.

The button does not update when switching variants

• Likely cause: switching to a variant that is Pending or has no feature attached correctly shows the normal button, that part is expected. If the button does not change at all on any variant, it is usually a theme compatibility issue with how your theme swaps variants.
• Fix: first confirm the variant you switched to is actually Active. If an Active variant still does not show the feature button after switching, this needs a small theme-side adjustment on our end, reach out to us with the product link.

The Pre-Order button does not appear in Quick View or Quick Add (or a custom collection layout)

• Likely cause: Quick View and Quick Add pop-ups, and some custom collection or featured-product layouts, are built by your theme and often use different markup from the standard product page. The button can work on the product page while a Quick View pop-up still shows Add to Cart, or it appears blank and unresponsive there.
• Fix: first confirm the variant is Active and the button works on the full product page (open it in an incognito window). If it works there but not inside Quick View, Quick Add, or a custom collection block, this needs a small theme-side adjustment on our end, reach out to us with the product link and where you want the button to appear.

I see two buttons, or a duplicated badge or timer

• Likely cause: something other than the app is also rendering the element, usually a leftover script from a previous pre-order or back-in-stock setup still in your theme, or another installed app showing its own button, badge, or timer for the same product.
• Fix: think about what changed just before the duplicate appeared. If you previously used another pre-order, back-in-stock, or timer app, uninstalling it does not always remove the code it added to your theme. Disable or remove the extra source and the duplicate goes away. If you cannot find it, reach out to us with the product link and we will locate and remove it, theme-side clean-up is handled on our end.

The feature is set up in admin but nothing shows on the storefront

• Likely cause: the product is in Draft (or archived) in Shopify so it has no live storefront page, the product is not attached to the customer experience template, the Start Date is in the future, the variant is Pending, or the shopper's market is outside the customer experience template's scope.
• Fix: work through these in order. First, in Shopify open Products and confirm the product's status is Active, not Draft or archived (a Draft product has no public page for the feature to appear on), and that it is available on the Online Store sales channel. Then confirm the product is attached to the customer experience template in the Products list, that the Start Date is today or in the past, and that the variant reads Active, not Pending. Attaching the product, publishing it in Shopify, and reaching the Start Date are the most common misses.

It works on one variant but not another

• Likely cause: status and stock are per variant, so each variant is judged on its own.
• Fix: check the status of the specific variant that is not working, it is likely Pending while the working one is Active.

It stopped working right after editing variants in Shopify

• Likely cause: editing or recreating variants in Shopify can change their variant IDs, which breaks the link to the customer experience template.
• Fix: reach out to us with the product link so we can relink it. Where possible, avoid recreating variants on a live pre-order product.

Translated text is not appearing

• Likely cause: the language is not published, or the customer experience template's text was not translated and saved for that language.
• Fix: in Shopify, Settings → Languages, confirm the language is published, then translate the Timesact entry for it in Translate & Adapt and save.

A pre-order email did not arrive

• Likely cause: the notification is set to Draft, the channel is routed elsewhere, or, for a custom sender domain, the DNS records are not verified.
• Fix: open Notifications, confirm the notification is Live, confirm the feature's channel is the one you expect, and if you use a custom domain, confirm its DNS records show as verified.

A PRO option is locked

• Likely cause: Specific countries, Shopify markets, and Specific locations need the PRO plan.
• Fix: upgrade to PRO, or use Global market scope and All locations, which work on every plan.

Some pre-orders come through at full price, with no pre-order terms, when customers use "Buy it Now" or Shop Pay

• Likely cause: the pre-order terms attach when a shopper adds the item with the normal Add to Cart button and moves through the cart to checkout. Shopify's native dynamic checkout buttons, Buy it Now and the Shop Pay accelerated checkout, send the order straight to checkout and don't carry the pre-order terms, so those orders come through as a normal purchase: charged in full, with no pre-order discount and no deferred or shipping terms.
• Fix: the clean fix is to hide the dynamic checkout buttons on pre-order products, so every pre-order goes through the cart. Reach out to us with your store link and we'll set this up on a copy of your live theme first, so you can preview it before it goes live. Your in-stock products keep their Buy it Now / Shop Pay buttons as normal. Prefer to do it yourself? In your Shopify admin you can turn off dynamic checkout buttons in the theme editor (Online Store, Themes, Customize, the product template's buy-buttons block), or per product template. Note this hides them for that whole scope, not only for pre-order products, so if you only want them hidden while a product is on pre-order, tell us and we'll scope it to pre-order products for you. After the change, place a test order from the product page and open the order in Shopify to confirm the pre-order terms are applied.

Known limitations

• Cart settings (cart label and cart pop-up) are available for Pre-Order only. Other features have no cart configuration.
• Some features are display-only and have no notifications yet, for example Coming Soon and Low Stock.
• Some features cannot be combined, for example Pre-Order and Coming Soon cannot both apply to the same product.

Still stuck?

If something is not working after these checks, reach out to us with the product link and which variant you are testing, and we will take a look. Theme-level adjustments, like a button that will not swap on variant change, are handled on our side.

Updated on: 07/14/2026