If I want to make a pre-order page for all the items I sold out how should I do it

Store Design
1

Hi,

I want to create or design the Pre-order page. How should I do that so it’s easy. I’m planning to do it for all the items I don’t have in stock yet or items that I sold out of.

2

Hi there, @evry1lovej !

Welcome to the Community! Definitely a great place to gather some input regarding anything about the platform!

With regards to your inquiry, what an exciting thing to prepare for! What sort of products are you currently selling? Any information that you can share about your business will help us understand your situation better.

I have also found these apps that allow you to offer the ability to preorder out of stock items:

These are only some of the options we have on the Shopify App Store. Once you go through them, let us know how they fair up to what you are after then we can assist from there.

3

You want to show a pre-order button instead of Add to Cart when the item is out of stock.

People can continue ordering right?

Which is your theme? Include a link please.

4

Which one do you recommend? I sell restaurant disposables. Anything from forks to containers, to bags. Basically what I want is any new items I haven’t included, or what I have sold out. I would like to set it to zero when inventory is 0 so that way it helps gives me an inventory count and incentives customers to buy

5

Also I’m tired of these apps costing so much. Is there a way to code this?

6

If you answer my question, I could try to help you.

7

Every app on the Shopify App Store has been vetted by our internal review teams so we can stand by the quality of all published apps. I recommend giving those a try to see which one works best for what you are after.

I definitely understand the need to integrate this via code instead of paying for apps as they can be costly. With this matter, I recommend you weigh out the benefits versus the costs to see if this feature is worth adding to your store just yet.

You can also consider hiring a Shopify Expert and pay for one cost outright to have this coded into your store. These experts are trusted freelancers who are well-versed on everything Shopify. The good thing about this option is also that you have the ability to outline what you need and what you’re willing to spend.

8

If you want customers to keep ordering products after they sell out, a pre-order solution is the simplest way to do it. It can automatically replace the “Add to Cart” button with a “Pre-order” button when inventory reaches zero, helping you capture sales instead of losing them.

A few things to look for in a pre-order solution:

  • Automatically enable pre-orders for out-of-stock products.

  • Support both existing sold-out items and upcoming product launches.

  • Offer full or partial payment options.

  • Customize preorder buttons, badges, and customer messaging.

  • Send back-in-stock notifications when inventory is replenished.

If you’re considering an app, PreOrder Guru includes all of these features, along with coming soon campaigns, countdown timers, and flexible customization without requiring custom development.

If you only need a basic “Pre-order” button, custom theme code is also an option, but it requires maintenance and updates whenever your theme changes. For most merchants, a dedicated pre-order app is the more practical and scalable approach.

9

You will get a video guideline with a ready code snippet. I will share it with you very soon.

10

Hi,

If you want to turn sold-out items into a pre-order experience, I’d suggest thinking about it as more than just creating a separate “pre-order page”.

A cleaner setup is usually:

  1. Decide which sold-out products are actually coming back.
  2. Keep those products visible and purchasable only if you can clearly communicate that they are pre-orders.
  3. Change the product page messaging so customers understand the item will ship later.
  4. Add the same type of message in the cart, especially if customers can buy both in-stock and pre-order items together.
  5. Avoid using pre-order for products with uncertain restock timing - for those, a back-in-stock notification flow is usually safer.

If this is only for a few products, you may be able to handle it with a custom product template and Shopify’s “continue selling when out of stock” setting.

If you plan to do this regularly across products, variants, restocks, or launches, a pre-order app is usually easier to maintain because it can manage the button text, rules, and customer-facing messaging without editing the theme each time.

The main thing is to make the pre-order state clear before checkout, not only after the order is placed.