How Does Pre-order Work in Your eCommerce Business?

The greatest motivation you can ever get in your eCommerce business is to have a customer pay for a product before launch. Preordering validates your idea or product.

If you have ever run out of stock in your online store, or you don’t have money to manufacture products, or you aim at launching an innovative item, offering pre-order items and introduction of a pre-order button could be the answer.

Opening pre-orders enables you to sell products that you don’t have. You give your shoppers a chance to buy a commodity before its production, or it’s not ready to ship. Pre-order sales are suitable for your online company if well strategized.

How does Preorder Work?

Firms selling highly anticipated products ride on the pre-release wave. If your business is on an eCommerce marketing campaign for products not yet available, you can receive orders before the release date. An eCommerce Pre-order App allows the business to include a payment option. You set it up and activate online pre-orders.

Online businesses can tell the customer’s interest in an item and build their interest in your inventory. The app streamlines pre-order items, activates shipping orders automatically, and allows you to collect profit in advance.

What is a Pre-order?

A pre-order is a request for the supply of an item but has not been released. Pre-orders idea came about when it became hard for customers to get popular products. Companies allow shoppers to reserve their copies before the release, which has become a great success.

Customers are guaranteed an immediate shipment upon release. Manufacturers run the first production according to the demand. They are sure of the minimum sales.

What is Pre-ordering in eCommerce?

When you allow pre-orders in your online business, customers reserve the products they need before official availability. Several suppliers and retailers have previously used pre-orders, especially in the music and gaming industries.

To the retailers, what does pre-order mean? The retailer can forecast the demand and ascertain sales and revenue. Any industry could effectively use pre-orders, whether they are hand-made goods or luxury designer products.

Several popular retailers rely on pre-orders to produce customized products. The shipment as well is made according to the customer’s local preferences.

Pre-orders is a source of funds for artists, developers, musicians, writers, and any new manufacturing firm that wants to cut costs.

Pre-order Sales Strategy

When launching an item, it’s necessary to incorporate a pre-order strategy in the plan. Pre-orders will help you do business and generate momentum before launching to test the market’s need for the product. A sense of excitement and shopper’s exclusivity about the product is attained.

You list a product in your store or website that is not produced or not yet on sale, available for pre-order but will be launched at a later date. Taking pre-orders of an item by allowing shoppers to pay a deposit or fully for reservation ensures they’ll get it when released.

A pre-order bonus or incentive is a marketing strategy where publishers, manufacturers, or retailers of an item prompt shoppers to reserve an item before it’s released. The aim is to get a robust initial sale of the item. Customers can partly pay or pay for everything as they place the order and complete the transaction as the product is released.

The pre-order bonus could be a discount on the purchased product or related merchandise or exclusive items via the pre-order program.

How to Do Pre-order Business

Pre-orders are a tactic that helps eCommerce businesses. The pre-order system is designed to create and execute a robust pre-order strategy.

Why Should a Business Offer Pre-orders?

Business owners who operate their stores on various eCommerce platforms can take the opportunity of a pre-order feature if they have installed a pre-order extension.

Some products require a combination of marketing and promotional efforts for successful pre-orders. Pre-orders are a simple but powerful tool to boost your sales and grow your online store.

There are several reasons why an eCommerce business should choose to allow pre-orders on certain new items. Some of the pre-order sales strategies include:

• Test demand: Pre-orders allow you to forecast the market for the item. You’ll be sure how much product should be manufactured. You estimate your sales in advance.
• Minimize risk: Even if you collect money from your shoppers when they submit pre-orders, make sure to have funding to purchase inventory or manufacture the new item. It’s especially so for new retailers. With anticipated sales, you set a strategy of alternative borrowing from financial institutions.
• With pre-orders the suppliers will not worry about unsold stock.
• Create excitement with pre-order offers: Pre-orders generate hype for the new item and around your business. The scarcity principle is exciting, where you limit the offer to a particular number of items within a specific time.
• Limited pre-orders make shoppers feel great and could boost your online business awareness as far as word-of-mouth marketing. The perceived urgency as a marketing tool increases pre-orders and impulse buying.

Drawbacks of Pre-orders

As a retailer, if you rely on pre-orders as a mode of generating funds for your inventory, your business’s future could be slim. You should consider what happens if the item arrives late, fluctuation of price, and quality changes (not as you had advertised to the shoppers). If this happens, customers are unforgiving. You lose customers and get bad reviews. It would be best if you first built trust with the manufacturer to avoid such risks and be aware of the market rules.

Some marketplaces could frustrate your business despite the strategies you had set if you are not keen on market requirements. Various platforms are very strict on shipping. If you delay and the shopper reviews you negatively, you are likely to lose your account.

If you aim to grow revenue for your online business, pre-orders are not a complete strategy to succeed. There is a guarantee of sales for a commodity, but this alone can’t create revenue growth.

Online Pre-Order Sales

For successful eCommerce pre-orders, learn how to drive a great campaign as follows:

Marketing Strategy

During and before the pre-order campaign, marketing is vital. That period before launching the product is very critical. The brands that you do at this time mean a lot than those you could do later.

Research the target audience. Establish their preferred mode of payment, their expectations, and the online platforms they spend most of their time.

Commit most of your time to social media marketing. Reach out to your email list. Spread the word before and when launching. Drive the audience to the product page and have detailed information with good product descriptions. If you aren’t sure of the shipping date, provide a projected range.

Contact your Customers

After receiving the pre-orders, communicate with the shoppers and continuously keep in touch with them. Remind them about the manufacturing process, delivery time, and any changes. Continuous updates create loyalty and trust to the customer, and in case of a late shipment, you’ll have taken good care of it.

Transparency and communication are essential in an eCommerce business. Your shoppers help you to market.

Order Fulfillment

Nothing is exciting to a shopper than fulfilling their pre-orders on the expected date.

Pre-order campaigns are a great business tool that measures a new commodity’s demand, creates excitement, and provides funds if well planned. It’s a good strategy for online business only if done with the correct manufacturer, successful marketing, and fulfillment of the pre-orders.

How Does Pre-ordering Work in eCommerce?

If you are in business, you can’t ignore the power of social media marketing strategy. A well-executed strategy creates awareness for your new brand and increases your sales. Social media has continuously changed the world. With the right measures in place, it will boost your pre-order offers very fast.

Keep finding and following great content creators. They test social media content boundaries for you. You get inspiration from how they’ve dealt with pre-orders and how they made it. You learn new trends and the often-used features. Some of these creators can partner with you in future pre-order campaigns.

As a new retailer, social is integral when it comes to customer service. This critical marketing toolbox allows you to be accessible by your customers. Invite social interactions through your channels. Highlight your details in social media platforms, email footers, shipping materials, product packaging, and the website.

Engage with the community through interactive tools. Let them know what’s pre-order, how pre-order works, and when you are running pre-order offer campaigns. Every social channel has its ways of engagement and interaction. You could use the Instagram stickers to ask questions, to poll, start chats, and much more.

Initiate converting conversations with your audience. Social media won’t be just a loudspeaker to you but allows you to hold dialogue with your customers. Use the social features and allow your audience to vote for the product you are just about to introduce. Let them share it across social media platforms.

Now and then, new product tools and features are introduced. Use these marketing tools to present your pre-order offer. The tools might seem not to make sense at first, but they will communicate to your audience. Use them creatively to do business.

You could publish the same content several times. Share the same essential message of a pre-order product across multiple channels many times. Share that great video. The goal here is to reach as many customers as possible. You want to be sure of the demand for the product.

Social media is a chance to interact and get personal with your audience. Keep communicating with them. Share the fun, founder story, and vision of your new product.

The Pre-order Button

Use the pre-order button to boost your sales.

Several businesses grab the opportunity when a new product is being released. Before committing significant investment on the product pre-order campaign helps to forecast the demand. Your supply could bring it to your attention that your huge order will be late. You can allow the shoppers to place orders using the pre-order feature.

Notify your audience of the exact date the product will be available. You will tell the number of customers that want to get notifications. It helps you to plan for later commodity orders.

Restrict your pre-orders to new items only. Online audiences receive news of a pre-order item very fast. If such a product is about to be released and won’t be in stock for quite some time, promote and attract several customers to the opportunity. It helps you to estimate how large the order should be.

Create excitement about the pre-order. Several people will visit your website. Run paid ad campaigns on social media to create awareness of the new product.

Communicate with your existing shoppers. Send the email. Let them know about the pre-order item. Share with all potential customers’ useful information like:

• Terms and conditions of the pre-order
• Number of items available for pre-order
• The estimated shipping date
• The method of payment

If allowed to do so, indicate how a shopper can cancel the order

You should include any relevant information on the pre-order product page. Provide any additional information like ‘how do pre-orders work?’ You may have a link to the page with such information.

Don’t let the shoppers wait too long. The timeliness should be kept short. It should be at most between 2 weeks and two months. Longer waiting time makes the customers lose interest and do away with the order.

Provide a good pre-order payment strategy such as:

• Allow the shoppers to make an order and pay once the item is in store. The customers are, however, likely to change their minds.
• Authorize your shopper’s credit card details and automatically charge once the product ships.
• Request for advance payment mostly when selling valuable or unique products.

A good app allows you to accept out-of-stock orders by automatically switching the ‘add to cart’ button to ‘pre-order’.  You can decide which products in the store should be scheduled for pre-ordering. Use the geo-location feature where you selectively turn on the pre-order option to certain countries.