"Backorder enables you to keep selling when you’re out of stock."
You might have sold out faster than you expected or forgot to restock and created the PO a little later than you needed to. After you create your PO, you have an estimated arrival date. Until then, you can activate backorder to keep selling when your inventory is on the way.
You now have an alternative for collecting emails and expecting your potential buyers to complete their purchase when your product is in stock again:
Backorders | Collecting Emails |
High purchase conversion | Low purchase conversion |
Brings instant revenue | Brings revenue when it's restocked |
Customer friendly: Informs the customer each step | Collects emails & informs potential buyers when restocked |
Doesn't unlist the sold-out items | May unlist the sold-out items (optional) |
Doesn't put the sold-out items at the bottom of your product list | May put the sold-out items at the bottom of your product list (optional) |
Dynamic shipment date aligned with incoming inventory | Shipment date fixed |
Protip: Being customer friendly and nearly over-communicating the shipment date of the product to your customer is the key to satisfaction. Making sure they understand and agree on the shipment date will drastically decrease your return rates.
How do backorders look on the storefront?
To learn how to set up your backorders, you can check our article “How to activate a backorder”