Set up items for online preordering
If you’re selling items for pickup and local delivery which are only available on certain dates (like festive season specials), your customers can preorder on your Square Online site and get the items when they become available.
When you set up preordering, customers will see a badge on your item page showing that the item is available for preorder, as well as the corresponding fulfilment window. When they add the item to their basket and proceed to checkout, they will see and can edit the pickup date and time, as well as the location information.
Before your begin
Be sure to set up pickup and delivery, and assign those fulfilment methods to items you want to set up for preordering. Learn how to Set up items for your online store for details.
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It’s important to know that preordering and scheduling serve different purposes. The primary differences between these two ordering techniques are the item availability and the length of time the item can be ordered ahead of the fulfilment date.
Preordering: Preordering is for items that are not currently available for purchase, and need to be ordered in advance to be picked up or delivered at some point after the items become available. Preorders are often used to create preliminary excitement about an item pending release.
Scheduling: Scheduling is for items that are already available for purchase, but the customer wants to order and pay now, and schedule the pickup or delivery for a specific time in the future (as long as it’s within your pickup and delivery hours). Scheduling is often used by restaurants, and other food and beverage businesses.
If a customer’s order contains a standard item along with a preorder item, the pickup date will be adjusted to the preorder fulfilment date. The customer will see a notification about this change and can adjust their order, or order the items separately if they need to pick up the standard item immediately.
Set up online preordering
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items > Item library.
Select an existing item or create a new one.
Under Ordering, toggle on Sell as preorder.
Select Edit preorder settings to choose the date or date range when the item will be available for pickup or delivery. You can choose any date and time from 24 hours up to 365 days in advance.
Optionally tick Customise fulfilment hours to choose the specific fulfilment hours within the selected date range. For example, if you set the time range as 10:00–14:00, buyers can choose only these hours for pickup or delivery on the specified pickup or delivery dates. If you leave this option unticked, your location’s standard pickup and delivery hours will apply.
Enter a Preorder cut-off date. This is a date and time after which you’d like to stop taking preorders for the item. The item won’t be available for preorder online after the specified date and time. Click Done.
Click Save when finished.
You can make changes to your item’s preorder status, edit dates and preorder availability, or turn off preordering at any time.