Why Adding a Shopify Pre-Order App to Your eCommerce Store Will Help You Sell More

Whether witnessing T-Swift’s site-crashing Eras Tour pre-sale from afar or pre-ordering the newest book from your fave author firsthand, we’ve all seen the hype that pre-orders can generate. And this hype does more than simply drive excitement and anticipation, though; it almost always leads to increased overall sales and profit. 

By definition, a pre-order is when you sell an item before it’s actually available. In the eCommerce world, that would be like selling a brand-new, not-yet-released drink flavor before it’s in stock or selling a popular, always-sold-out t-shirt while it’s being restocked. 

Pre-orders, especially with the help of a pre-order app, can do a lot of good for your eCommerce business. They help to generate hype and FOMO around particular items, drive sales of particular items, generate cash flow, increase customer satisfaction, help forecast demand, and, as previously mentioned, generally increase overall sales. 

Read on to learn more about why you should add a pre-order app to your eCommerce site if you haven’t already. 

5 Reasons Why You Should Add A Pre-Order App to Your Shopify Site

1. Pre-Order Apps Generate Excitement Around New or Upcoming Items

Pre-orders create the illusion that certain items either will be “in demand” or that they’ve been previously “in demand,” resulting in excitement and FOMO (fear of missing out). Just think about it. 

Let’s say you’re in need of a new pair of gym shorts and one of your favorite athletic apparel brands is promoting the pre-sale of brand-new spandex shorts on Instagram. Your first intuition is that this brand is probably offering a pre-sale because they’re intending the shorts to sell out. These shorts, therefore, must be good. This, in turn, results in excitement from customers like you — and this excitement leads to FOMO. So much so, in fact, that you might be oh-so-tempted to click “Pre-Order Now” so that you don’t miss out on what all the hype is about.

For the sake of another example, let’s say one of your favorite bands, De La Soul, was re-releasing their hit 2001 album, AOI: Bionix, this summer on vinyl. For eager stans too impatient to wait for its August release date, they can purchase this album now via pre-order. Similar to the previous example, this pre-order sets up the expectation that this record is going to be wildly popular and likely to sell out. Consequently, it builds hype around the upcoming release and generates a sense of FOMO among customers.

2. Pre-Order Apps Drive Sales of New or Upcoming Items

Since pre-orders drive excitement and FOMO around a particular product, they also often lead to more sales. 

Let’s go back to the previous example. Had the athletic apparel brand not offered a pre-sale on these spandex shorts, you might not have been so tempted to buy them. They would have been just another pair of shorts in a catalog of 30. The pre-sale, however, immediately called your attention to them. It also positioned them as popular and “good,” since the retailer thought they were worthy of a pre-sale. This, in turn, made you more tempted to buy them. It also likely converted more customers in a similar way.

More than being a persuasive sales tactic, though, pre-orders can also drive sales by capturing customers who are ready to buy even when the product isn’t. 

Using the same example, when you stumbled upon this retailer’s pre-sale, you were on the hunt for shorts NOW. Had the pre-sale not been available, you may have been tempted to hop to a different apparel brand simply to meet your immediate gym needs. You didn’t, though, because the pre-sale allowed you to satisfy those pressing needs even though the shorts weren’t yet in stock.

3. Pre-Order Apps Allow You to Better Forecast Demand

Pre-orders can help you forecast demand for particular items by selling them before they’re even in stock.

When you’re launching a new product, your ops team typically has the chops to predict anticipated demand and, consequently, necessary product quantities. Sometimes, though, these predictions can be off. When they’re off, they can result in negative consequences for your business. 

For example, when you overestimate demand, you end up spending more money than needed on your production run. This results in increased expenses. You’ll also likely be left with excess inventory that you’ll have to discount in order to sell down the road, resulting in decreased margins.

Some of this risk can be mitigated, though, by offering pre-sales. Pre-sales allow you to start selling items before their production runs are completed and allow you to make better, data-backed predictions regarding total expected sales. This, in turn, allows you to adjust the output of a production run accordingly.

4. Pre-Order Apps Generate Cash Flow

Pre-orders bring money through the door even when a product isn’t ready yet. This means more cash in the bank, if and when you need it.

Let’s go back to the gym short example. Say that these shorts were pre-selling for $60 a piece, and you pre-sold 300 items. That’s $18,000 in cash straight to your business’s bank account before having to ship out a single pair of shorts.

5. Pre-Order Apps Drive Revenue and Profit All Round

It’s simple math:

Pre-orders increase sales of particular products by grabbing attention and generating FOMO of excitement; Pre-orders capture MORE customers who are trying to satisfy an immediate need; Pre-orders lead to higher customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to higher retention and decreased acquisition costs; And finally, pre-orders allow for more accurate forecasting, resulting in decreased operational expenses.

All of this combined? Increased overall sales and decreased overall costs, resulting in higher profit at the end of the day for you and your eCommerce business.

Easily Add Pre-Orders to Your eCommerce Store with the Pre-Order Now Shopify App

Now while you may be sold on adding a pre-order functionality to your Shopify site, you may be wondering how. Adding pre-orders to your eCommerce site is easy with a pre-order app like the Pre-Order Now Shopify App, one of the best Shopify apps on the market. 

With a quick and frictionless setup, the Pre-Order Now App allows you to easily and immediately create hype around new and out-of-stock products by adding pre-orders. Try it free for 14 days to experience firsthand the positive impact pre-ordering can have on your eCommerce business.