Pre-Order

[MELSHH]

I am wanting to know how to add a product as a 'pre-order'. I am wanting customers to be able to select and pay for an item but the items isn't in stock yet, it is being 'pre-ordered', how do I do this?
My site is www.melaniesholistichealing.com

Thank you

[PatClay]

Settings:
Admin, Configuration, Stock, Allow Checkout, true
Will allow people to purchase a product which is out of stock.

There is a plugin called "Ceon Back In Stock Notifications" which allows people to sign up to be emailed when a product is back.

[mc12345678]

An alternative option is to set the number available to a known ridiculous quantity until the item is truly in stock making the description of the product clear that it is a pre-order...

Really a pre-order is nothing more than selling the product when the product is not physically available. The hard part comes from having to track the sales for later when the product arrives as all the pre-orders need to find their appropriate destination.

What is special or the concern about trying to setup pre-order status for your product?

[MELSHH]

An alternative option is to set the number available to a known ridiculous quantity until the item is truly in stock making the description of the product clear that it is a pre-order...

Really a pre-order is nothing more than selling the product when the product is not physically available. The hard part comes from having to track the sales for later when the product arrives as all the pre-orders need to find their appropriate destination.

What is special or the concern about trying to setup pre-order status for your product?

I actually have done this. Set up normal products but made it known in the description that they are pre-orders only. I've just noticed though, that it shows people that they are in stock and shows the quantity. This is really what I wanted changed. I don't want any stock to show but I can't find how to delete 'availability'.

[mc12345678]

Do you want to remove quantity availability from just these pre-order products or all products?

In the end it would require a sql statement to modify, but you could setup the presale product as product type document-general where the quantities available are hidden for document-general product type, then when the product does come into availability it can be changed over to a product-general product type using a sql command in tools->install sql patches.

Or you could code to exclude display of the product quantity availability for particular products or products in particular categories. Or you could use css to visually hide the available quantity (html through view source would still have the available quantity present.)

The sql command to change the product type of the product having products_id=5 back to product-general is:

UPDATE products set products_type = 1 WHERE products_id = 5;

[mc12345678]

To change the current product (assuming already setup and the reason for this question) to the document-general product type, a similar sql command would be run:

UPDATE products set products_type = 3 WHERE products_id = 5;

[HeleneWallis]

I actually have done this. Set up normal products but made it known in the description that they are pre-orders only. I've just noticed though, that it shows people that they are in stock and shows the quantity. This is really what I wanted changed. I don't want any stock to show but I can't find how to delete 'availability'.

You could just disable the Products Quantity box for this particular item. That way you can set the available number high enough that it won't sell out, but no one will be able to see how many actually are available. I've done that and it worked well. The only problem I had is that there actually was a limited quantity and I had inadvertently set the configuration not to show 'Sold Out' when it was. So I ended up selling a few more than I had, oops.

I set up a mailing list through my host for the second pre-order shipment so I could have a waiting list. I'll email that waiting list 12 hours before I make any announcements anywhere else about availability, to let those customers have first crack at the products.