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Why offer pre-orders?
Because it lets shoppers know there is a limited quantity or a limited amount of time until your pre-sale discount ends, and this makes them much more likely to purchase.
And that’s great for you because you get immediate cash flow even before the product can be shipped, and you might even end up with higher overall sales.
And of course, I’m not going to talk about these great benefits without offering you a solution.
In this post, you’ll find a collection of the best WooCommerce pre-order and pre-sale plugins. Using these plugins, you can:
- Create discounted pre-order items
- Decide exactly when to start and finish your pre-sale
- Automatically convert out-of-stock products into pre-order products
- Email shoppers when a product becomes available
Keep reading to find out what features you need and which plugin will work best for your store.
Pre-order & pre-sale plugins
Any of the plugins listed below could work well for your site, but they each have their own strengths and weaknesses.
I’ll provide a few final tips at the conclusion of the article if you’re still struggling to make a choice.
Here are my top picks for the best WooCommerce pre-order plugins.
1. YITH Pre-Order for WooCommerce
Plugin Description
If you want a straightforward plugin for adding pre-orders and pre-sales to your site, you can’t beat YITH Pre-Order for WooCommerce.
To convert any product into a pre-order, all you have to do is click a checkbox, just like the checkbox for making a product “Downloadable”. You’ll then see options to set the sale date, edit the label, and add a fixed or percentage-based discount.
On the front-end, customers will see a pre-order button instead of an Add to Cart button, and a label letting them know when the product will be available. They’ll also get an email the same day the product goes on sale.
One last feature that makes this plugin truly powerful is the option to enable pre-ordering for all out-of-stock products. This allows you to continue collecting sales even when inventory runs out.
Overall, this is a comprehensive plugin for managing pre-sales and pre-orders in WooCommerce.
2. WooCommerce Pre-Orders
Plugin Description
WooCommerce Pre-Orders is a simple plugin that will let you create pre-orders for your store.
A neat feature in this plugin is the option to charge immediately or in the future for pre-orders. Since there’s also an option to add a pre-order fee, you could charge a small price for a pre-order and then the full price once the product is available. The way the checkout works, customers pre-authorize the purchase so they don’t need to visit the site and checkout again to process the payment.
There aren’t that many customization options included in this plugin, but it is cool that you can pre-authorize sales. If you want to collect payments in the future instead of immediately for your pre-orders, go with this plugin.
3. Mighty WooCommerce Pre-order
Plugin Description
Pre-order Marketing is a win-win strategy, and the powerful Mighty WooCommerce Pre-Order plugin makes it easy for your customers to pre-order products that are currently unavailable or are about to be released, resulting in higher revenues.
This plugin is simple to use and comes packed with useful features. Some of the features include sending pre-order reminder emails, accepting partial payments or full payment for the product, displaying a countdown to the product launch, managing the pre-order list at one place, setting a country’s time zone specific to each customer, and more.
In addition, eye-catching customization options will entice your customers to buy more from you. Customization options include modifying the default “Add to Cart” text, changing the countdown title text, background color, pre-order pay price text color, call-to-action button text color, default availability text color, and more.
Overall, the Mighty WooCommerce Pre-Order plugin helps you avoid having customers order from other sites and keeps them on yours, resulting in higher conversions.
4. WooCommerce Pre-Order Sales
Plugin Description
WooCommerce Pre-Order Sales is a feature-rich plugin for collecting pre-sale purchases with WooCommerce.
When you enable pre-order for a product, you can choose the sale date, set a new pre-order price, add a discount, and decide on the minimum and maximum quantities available for purchase. Limiting quantities is a thoughtful feature that other plugins don’t include.
Additionally, you can display a countdown timer on the product page and add a feedback form so customers can ask you questions before submitting a pre-order.
If you want an easy way to add pre-sales to your WooCommerce store, give this plugin a try.
5. WooCommerce Pre Order
Plugin Description
WooCommerce Pre Order lets you add pre-order items to your store that show up alongside all your other products. You can choose which payment gateways to allow and send a custom email to customers when their pre-order becomes available.
This plugin has a nicer style than others, with a colorful and bold label for the sale date, plus a countdown timer to make it even clearer when the product becomes available. If you really want to create a sense of urgency, you can also display the number of items in stock.
While this plugin has received great reviews for its features, I think it could be limiting for some users because it creates a separate Products and Orders menu for pre-order items. You will likely have more flexibility and control using a plugin that instead lets regular WooCommerce products be marked for pre-sale.
6. WooCommerce Pre Sale
Plugin Description
WooCommerce Pre Sale is another decent plugin for adding pre-sales to your store.
One thing that sets this plugin apart is the option to set the exact time your pre-order sale ends. Since you can also offer a discount, it’s particularly well-designed for generating extra sales leading up to a product launch.
While this plugin does offer all the functionality you need, the settings menus can be confusing and the style of the pre-sale content output on the store doesn’t look great. The countdown timer, in particular, could use some more styling as it’s only displayed in plain text.
Overall, this plugin is functionally complete but struggles a bit with style. However, it does come at a much more affordable price than other plugins listed here.
Which pre-order plugin is best for you?
If you’re still having trouble deciding on just one plugin, here’s some more guidance for making your choice.
YITH Pre-Order for WooCommerce offers comprehensive functionality and is the only plugin to offer the option to automatically turn out-of-stock products into pre-order products. That’s a pretty sweet feature for boosting your cash inflow and creating urgency.
WooCommerce Pre Orders is the only plugin that lets you delay charging customers and it also has a pre-order fee option. Based on your store’s needs, it could be the perfect choice.
Thanks for browsing this list of the best WooCommerce pre-sale plugins, and make sure to share it with someone else if it helped you out today.
