Preorders and backorders: explain the fulfillment model you actually use

Name the model before the customer pays

An ordinary in-stock order, a backorder, and a preorder are different promises. An in-stock order says the goods can be handed to a carrier from inventory you already have. A backorder says you are accepting the order even though the available quantity is gone. A preorder says you are accepting the order before that goods are available at all. Customers and a provider cannot review a promise you have not written down.

This page is about taking the order ahead of fulfillment. It is not the page for comparing ordinary shipping copy with a carrier delay after a normal order, and it is not the page for writing the refund policy itself. If the ship date moves, the cancellation choice belongs in the same explanation as the availability claim. A date you hope for is not a date you can state.

A backorder setting is not a delivery date

WooCommerce's variable-product documentation says each variation can allow backorders, and that enabling backorders lets stock go below zero. The same control exists at the parent product when stock is managed there. If backorders are allowed, WooCommerce's inventory setting that hides out-of-stock items still leaves a backordered variation visible. If backorders are disabled, stock is managed on the variation, the quantity is zero, and that hide setting is on, the variation is hidden.

Those settings tell the store whether the buy button remains available. They do not state a day the goods will ship. If you publish a ship time, it has to be a time you have a reason to expect, written in the same place the customer orders. A preorder that is not this backorder setting needs its own platform documentation. This page does not describe an extension's checkout. On another platform, use that platform's own availability settings rather than these WooCommerce controls.

Payment timing is a second fact

Charging when the order is placed and charging when the goods ship are not the same model. Stripe's page on placing a hold says an authorization reserves the amount and capture collects it later, only for payment methods that support separate authorization and capture. Cards are among the methods that support it. ACH and iDEAL are named as methods that do not. For an online card payment, Stripe's table gives a customer-initiated authorization window of 7 days for Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover, and a shorter Visa window when Stripe and the card network classify the transaction as merchant-initiated. If the authorization expires first, Stripe says the funds are released and the payment status becomes canceled.

Stripe also says some card statements do not distinguish an authorization from a captured payment. A customer can therefore see a pending line before you ship. That is a reason to say, in the order explanation, whether the payment is a hold or a completed charge. The capture window is not a ship-by date, and it is not a window for a provider other than Stripe. A default checkout that captures immediately has a different fact: the customer has paid while the goods are still not on hand. Write that down. It is one of the facts a provider can ask about. It is not, by itself, a decision that the provider will accept the model.

A stated ship time comes with a delay choice

The Federal Trade Commission's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, 16 CFR Part 435, covers sales in which the buyer orders merchandise by mail, internet, or telephone, regardless of how the buyer pays. The electronic Code of Federal Regulations text says it is an unfair or deceptive practice to solicit such an order unless, at the time of the solicitation, the seller has a reasonable basis to expect to ship within the time clearly and conspicuously stated, or within 30 days after a properly completed order if no time is stated. Where the buyer applies to the seller for credit at the time of the order, that unstated period is 50 days rather than 30.

The same section says that if the seller cannot ship in the applicable time, the seller must, without a prior demand, offer the buyer a clear choice to consent to a delay or to cancel and receive a prompt refund. The offer needs a definite revised ship date when the seller has a reasonable basis for one. If the seller does not, the notice has to say that the seller cannot represent how long the delay will be, and it has to give the reason. Shipment, in the rule's definitions, is the act of placing the merchandise in the carrier's possession. The rule's limited-applicability section excludes specified transactions, including later shipments in a subscription after the first shipment complies, seed and plant orders, collect-on-delivery orders, and transactions governed by the negative-option rule. The eCFR text also says it does not annul stronger state or local buyer rights.

This page does not decide whether Part 435 applies to your orders, your products, or your location. That is a question for counsel and for the facts of the solicitation. What you can do here is refuse to publish a ship date you cannot support, and write the delay choice you will actually offer if the date moves. A provider still decides whether it will process an order taken ahead of shipment.

What you can resolve before anyone asks

You can write the availability state on each product, the moment payment is authorized or captured, the ship time you will state or the fact that you will not state one, who tells the customer if the time changes, and how the customer can cancel. You can point a provider at that written model instead of a forecast.

You cannot decide from this page that the FTC rule applies, that a card authorization will last until your goods arrive, or that a provider will accept delayed fulfillment. Prism's public support can review the storefront explanation and help you organize the processing question. Scope, fees, and terms are discussed before that work. The review is not a legal opinion, and the provider decides eligibility and account terms.

Leave the worksheet blank where the platform is not WooCommerce, the provider is not Stripe, or you do not yet know the ship time. An unknown date is a blank. It is not a date you fill in to make the row look finished.

Fulfillment-model worksheet

One row is one real product or product group that can be ordered before it ships from stock on hand. Use your catalog and payment settings. Do not type a hoped-for date in place of a date you can support. Worksheet entries are not submitted by this worksheet or saved by this site. Use only non-sensitive summaries; do not enter credentials, government identifiers, card or bank-account numbers, private receipt links, or customer details.

Worksheet entries are not submitted by Prism’s worksheet and are not saved by the site. Use record types, availability, anonymized observations, or match/mismatch results. Do not enter government identifiers, customer names or addresses, customer messages, receipt-access links, card or bank details, passwords, or keys. Send sensitive documents only through the provider’s verified secure channel.

These are temporary notes. Leaving or reloading this page may clear them. The consultation form does not include these entries.