Pre-order Capability

**skipper49** · 18 Oct 2010, 07:46 PM

Hi. I'm searching, but I can't get a clear answer on this. Does ZenCart have the ability to pre-order items. In other words, if a product isn't shipping yet, buyers can still preorder the item (just like how amazon does it for items not yet available or back-ordered).

Maybe it's built in feature, or maybe it's a mod or add on? Thanks.

**DrByte** · 19 Oct 2010, 06:22 AM

Yes .

**skipper49** · 20 Oct 2010, 12:21 AM

ok. so that's a yes. is that a built in feature? or add-on?

**swguy** · 20 Oct 2010, 01:55 AM

Zen Cart (native) allows the store owner to optionally permit checkout when stock is not available to fill the order. See admin->configuration->stock for the switches.

**len7560** · 21 Oct 2010, 10:24 PM

I am looking for the same thing. I have run across this answer so many times...

Here's what I (and others, I think) are looking for:

A way to allow the sale of SELECT items when the inventory falls below zero.

I keep a running US Dollar value for all the stock on hand. So I don't really want to add an inventory number to the items that will pre-ordered until I have them in hand.

Sold Out items say sold out. Pre-order items can still be sold with a stack value of <0

When going to admin->configuration->stock, there simply is one option missing "allow pre-orders on select items". This would then need to be a selectable field on the product (admin) page itself.

Can this be done?

**DrByte** · 22 Oct 2010, 03:24 AM

Len7560, you can do that, but only after you write all the required custom database content, forms to manage the data entry, PHP code to validate and save the entered data, PHP code to drive the logic to run the extra additional queries to determine what to do on the storefront for each affected product, and validation during checkout to take appropriate action. Well, that's a start anyway.
Please share the code when you're done!

**Jason_S** · 24 Oct 2010, 10:52 PM

My low tech fix for this...

Right now I am pre-ordering an album that comes out in January. The product name is "The Album Name (PRE-ORDER ** SHIPS THIS DATE)".

On my "to do" list is to add some text to the category, but for the most part this is working for me. We put out news about the pre-orders on our social networking sites, told the fans that pre-orders are discounted heavily, and am going from there.

When the album comes out, I'll have to spend some time editing product descriptions.