> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://conversion.club/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How Do You Sell on Pre-Order Without Letting Customers Down? - URL: https://conversion.club/playbook/how-do-you-sell-on-pre-order-without-letting-customers-down/ - Published: 2026-10-01T20:44:37.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T20:26:07.000Z - Description: Announce a date you're sure to beat, and keep customers posted between order and shipment. A well-run pre-order builds loyalty. A poorly run one floods your customer service inbox. - Author: Jeremie Werner - Tags: Increase average order value, #playbook, Product Page Announce a date you're sure to beat, and keep customers posted between order and shipment. A well-run pre-order builds loyalty. A poorly run one floods your customer service inbox. --- ## The benchmark Track three numbers: the gap between the promised ship date and the actual one, the cancellation rate before shipment, and the number of "where's my order?" messages per hundred pre-orders. If the first one regularly goes above zero, the other two will follow. --- ## The rule The ship date appears on the product page, in the cart and in the confirmation email, as a range. If it slips, you announce it before anyone asks. That date is a binding commitment, literally. The French Consumer Code requires you to deliver on the date or within the timeframe stated and, if none is given, no later than thirty days after the order. If you're late, the buyer can ask you in writing to deliver within a reasonable extra period, then cancel if nothing arrives, and you then have fourteen days to refund everything they paid. --- ## The steps 1. The date. Show the estimated ship date next to the buy button, and [check that it stays visible when someone switches size or color](https://conversion.club/playbook/what-should-you-show-when-a-size-or-product-is-out-of-stock/). 2. The charge. Decide when you charge, and say so. On Shopify Payments, a payment authorization that hasn't been captured lasts only seven days (up to thirty on some cards, with Shopify Plus). Beyond that, charging at shipment generally means using a pre-order app that saves the card, and you need a plan for what to do if that card is declined six weeks later. 3. The updates. [Send a message at every stage](https://conversion.club/how-to-optimize-post-purchase-in-e-commerce-the-complete-audit/): production started, package ready, shipped. 4. [The mixed cart](https://conversion.club/playbook/what-should-your-free-shipping-threshold-be/). Flag in the cart that a pre-order item delays the whole shipment, or ship in two parts. 5. Cancellation. [Make it easy](https://conversion.club/digital-fairness-act-what-you-can-still-do-to-drive-conversion/) as long as the package hasn't left. Refusing doesn't protect you, since in distance selling the fourteen-day withdrawal period only starts at delivery: the customer can send the item back once it arrives, and you'll have paid for shipping for nothing. --- ## The trap The most common one is believing a pre-order fits in a button. I said it myself to a founder, in a meeting: it's "just a pre-order button, if I'm oversimplifying." When she worried it would look "a bit tacky" on her site, I reassured her with a ready-made app. Another brand showed us, on a shared screen, what that button leaves out: > "Sometimes I end up with customers who didn't realize it was a pre-order because they didn't see the little boxed message here." On her site, the message disappeared as soon as you clicked another variant. The mixed cart makes things worse: someone who orders one in-stock item and one pre-order item gets everything six weeks later without understanding why. The other trap is more flattering. Pre-order is often presented as market research where people pay to answer, and that's true, as long as you know who's answering. At a fashion brand we work with, the two items sold on pre-order over one summer turned 8.5% of views into purchases, versus 2.4% for the in-stock catalog. The same coat, in the same color, converted at 10.3% on pre-order and 3.9% in stock. Our contact at the brand read the numbers this way: > "These are buyers who already know the product, who are already a bit convinced," and pre-order stats "should always be taken with a grain of salt." So pre-orders mostly measure the appetite of [your community](https://conversion.club/fomo-and-drop-strategies-four-schools-of-scarcity/), well before that of the audience your next campaign will reach. Before sizing a production run on these numbers, split your pre-orders into two columns: people who had already bought from you, and everyone else. [The size breakdown](https://conversion.club/playbook/what-to-prepare-on-your-site-before-a-product-launch/) in the second column matters more than the total. You can then put it to your leadership this way: > "X% of our pre-orders come from customers who already knew us; we're basing the restock on the rest." #### Sources - [Article L216-1 of the French Consumer Code (Légifrance)](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article%5Flc/LEGIARTI000032226968?ref=conversion.club) - [Article L216-6 of the French Consumer Code (Légifrance)](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article%5Flc/LEGIARTI000044142472?ref=conversion.club) - [Article L216-7 of the French Consumer Code (Légifrance)](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article%5Flc/LEGIARTI000044139707?ref=conversion.club) - [Payment authorization (Shopify Help Center)](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/payment-authorization?ref=conversion.club) - [About purchase options (Shopify.dev)](https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/build/purchase-options?ref=conversion.club)