Shopify Presales: How to Launch Products Before They're Ready

A presale — selling a product before it physically exists in your warehouse — lets you validate demand, fund production, and build hype, all before you've paid for inventory. Here's how the process typically works with a preorder tool like STOXIQ.

1. Build one campaign, not one product at a time

Instead of configuring preorder rules on every product individually, create a single campaign — a set of rules for payment, availability, and fulfillment — and attach as many products to it as you like. A full new collection can launch under one campaign in minutes.

2. Decide how you get paid

You have four options: charge the full amount immediately, take a deposit now and the rest later, defer the entire charge to a future date, or let the shopper choose between full payment and a deposit at checkout. Whichever you pick, an optional preorder discount can sweeten the deal, and reminder emails go out automatically before any scheduled balance charge.

3. Set the availability window

A presale can run indefinitely, open and close on specific dates, or both — with a styleable countdown timer showing "Starts in" or "Ends in" messaging to build urgency.

4. Choose your trigger mode

"Out of stock" mode lets you keep selling straight through zero physical stock, uncapped unless you set a limit. "In stock" mode lets customers preorder ahead of a real, limited restock — once that real stock hits zero, the product behaves like a normal sold-out item.

5. Tell customers when to expect their order

Set fulfillment to normal timing, a specific date, a number of days after ordering, or "on hold" until you manually release it — optionally requiring full payment before a hold can release.

6. Manage it from one place

A dedicated Orders view shows every preorder, its payment and fulfillment status, and one-click actions: release a hold, reschedule a ship date, reschedule a payment date, collect a balance, or notify a customer their ship date changed. Customers, meanwhile, can cancel their own order from the confirmation email — with an automatic refund — without ever contacting support.

See the full breakdown on the Preorder feature page.