Urgent about fulfilling orders

[Chainstitch]

Can I not do a preorder system whereby I get all my sales and with that revenue I then pay my suppliers ? I’ve put that shipping is 3-5 weeks and also put on all social media’s that they will be waiting as it’s preorder, so I got flagged as not having fulfilled my orders! Please Shopify if you can remove this as a flagged thing it’s really frustrating and a stress I don’t need! 

 

[JayAdra]

Hi @Chainstitch!

I run an Aussie-founded pre-order app (Early Bird), so I might have some useful insight here!

It sounds like you're trying to sell these products as pre-orders, but aren't scheduling the fulfilments for the expected ship date. This would mean the orders sit as "Unfulfilled" for over a month, which is likely what flagged your account with Shopify.

The recommended way to do pre-orders in Shopify is to use a pre-order app to sell products early. This will ensure that all of your messaging is clear across your customer journey that the product is a pre-order, and that the customer can expect a delay in shipping.

It also marks all your orders as Scheduled, and sets the fulfilment date in the future, so you won't get flagged like this. It also gives you a bunch of other features like partial pay options, customizable discounts, scheduled pre-order campaigns etc.

I'd recommend looking into using an app to sell pre-orders in the future, so you can avoid these sorts of flags, and ensure customers are informed clearly that the product is a pre-order to prevent cancellations.

I made a video walkthrough which shows you how to do this too, if you wanted a step-by-step. Hope it helps!

Let me know if you had any questions about pre-orders or the app - always happy to help 🙂

[Chainstitch]

So am I going to have to refund all orders now, is it too late or can I do this to the orders now?

[JayAdra]

You won't be able to retroactively make them pre-orders, so I would recommend you reply to that Shopify email and explain your situation. They should have a recommended course of action for you (whether that is to refund the orders, or to just fulfil them in 3 weeks when you can).

Moving forward though, you should consider using a pre-order app so you don't face this issue again.