Wix Stores guide

How to Add Pre-Orders on Wix: Setup, Limits and Restocking

Published 30 October 2026 · By the PreOrder Pilot team at PLANO

Wix Stores has a pre-order option built in, so for many stores the answer to “how do I add pre-orders on Wix?” is a single toggle on the product page. The details are what trip people up: the button only switches when stock reaches zero, a limit needs tracked inventory, products with options are set per variant, and your stock count goes negative once orders come in. This guide walks through the native setup step by step, how to restock and fulfil pre-orders without overselling, and when an app is worth adding.

The short answer

1. In your Wix dashboard, go to Store Products and open a physical product (or create one).
2. In the inventory and pre-order settings, turn on Sell as pre-order when this product is out of stock.
3. Write a short pre-order message with the expected shipping time, such as “Ships by mid-December”.
4. Optionally limit how many units can be pre-ordered. This needs Track inventory quantity to be on.
5. Save. When the product's stock reaches zero, the Add to Cart button changes to Pre-Order.

Wix's own Help Center article, Letting Customers Pre-Order Products, has the reference steps. The exact section name can differ slightly between product page versions in the dashboard.

What Wix's built-in pre-orders do (and don't do)

Step 1: Prepare the product's inventory

Pre-order on Wix is tied to stock. The product sells normally while it is in stock and switches to pre-order when it runs out. That makes inventory the first thing to get right.

• Track quantities if you want a limit. With Track inventory quantity off you can only mark a product In stock or Out of stock, and you cannot cap the number of pre-orders.
• For a product that does not exist yet, set the quantity to 0. Pre-order applies straight away, and every order is a pre-order.
• For a restock, leave the current quantity as it is. Customers buy the remaining units normally; once they sell out, the product moves to pre-order on its own.
• Physical products only. The setting is part of physical product inventory.

Step 2: Turn on pre-order and write the message

Open the product in Store Products, scroll to the inventory and pre-order settings and enable Sell as pre-order when this product is out of stock. Then add the message customers will see above the button.

The message is the only place a native Wix pre-order tells customers what to expect, so make it specific:

• Good: “Pre-order: ships in the week of 14 December.”
• Good: “Back in stock early March. Pre-order now to reserve yours.”
• Vague: “Coming soon.” (Customers don't know if that means days or months.)

Give a window you are confident about. If the supplier says 3 weeks, quote 4. A late pre-order generates more support emails than any other kind of order. Repeat the expected date in the product description and, if you use them, in your order confirmation emails.

Step 3: Set a pre-order limit

Tick Limit the number of items available for pre-order and enter the maximum you can fulfil from the next delivery. When the limit is reached, customers can no longer pre-order the product.

Choose the number from what is actually arriving, not from what you hope to sell. If 60 units are on the way and you already have orders that will take 10 of them, a limit of 50 keeps you from promising stock you won't have.

Step 4: Products with options (sizes, colours)

For a product with options, Wix manages inventory and pre-order per variant. If you enable pre-order at product level, the same setting, message and limit initially apply to every variant. Open Edit Variants to change them individually; you can also enable pre-order for selected variants only.

Watch the limit: it applies per variant. A limit of 10 on a T-shirt with 2 colours and 2 sizes allows up to 40 pre-orders in total, 10 for each of the 4 variants. If the supplier is sending 10 shirts in total, set the limits variant by variant instead.

Step 5: Restock and fulfil without overselling

This is the step most guides skip, and where most pre-order problems start. With tracked inventory, each pre-order lowers the stock below zero. A product showing −12 has 12 units already sold.

When the delivery arrives, do not type in the delivered quantity. Subtract the pre-orders first. If 50 units arrive and stock shows −12, set it to 38 (50 − 12). Entering 50 would let the store sell 12 units you have already promised to someone else.

To ship the pre-orders, go to Orders, click Filter, choose the product in the Products filter and fulfil those orders as usual. Orders containing pre-ordered items show a pre-order indication under the product name. If an order mixes an in-stock item with a pre-ordered one, you can fulfil part of the order now and add a tracking number for each shipment.

Where the native setup runs out

For a single product launch, the built-in settings are often all you need. Stores that use pre-orders regularly tend to hit the same limits:

• No schedule. You switch pre-orders on and off by hand. A pre-order window that should close at midnight before a launch only closes when someone remembers.
• One product at a time. Opening a whole upcoming collection means editing each product and variant.
• No overview. There is no single screen showing which products are on pre-order, their limits and their dates.
• Full payment only. Deposits and pay-later are not possible on Wix checkout.

If the product won't be sold before it arrives at all, Wix's back-in-stock notifications are an alternative: customers leave their email and hear from you when it is available, without paying upfront.

Adding pre-order campaigns with PreOrder Pilot

PreOrder Pilot is our app for Wix Stores, built on top of the native Wix pre-order flow, so customers still pay in full through the normal Wix checkout and in-stock items keep selling as usual. It adds:

• pre-order campaigns for products or individual variants, each with its own quantity limit and customer message with an expected shipping date;
• a dashboard with your campaigns, a calendar and recent activity in one place;
• on paid plans, scheduled opening and closing of campaigns, plus CSV export.

The free plan covers 3 active campaigns. Paid plans are Starter ($5.99/month, 25 campaigns), Growth ($11.99/month, 100) and Enterprise ($19.99/month, unlimited), each with a 14-day trial; the Wix App Market listing shows current terms and annual options. It works with physical Wix Stores products with quantity tracking; digital and subscription products are not supported, and deposits are not part of the Wix edition. Full details are on PreOrder Pilot for Wix Stores.

If all you need is to switch native pre-orders on for many products at once on a schedule, the free Preorder Bulk Scheduler app on the Wix App Market is another option to compare.

Pre-launch checklist

1. Inventory tracking is on and the quantity is correct (0 for an unreleased product).
2. Pre-order is enabled, with a specific expected shipping window in the message.
3. The limit matches the incoming delivery, set per variant where needed.
4. The product page and description repeat the expected date.
5. You have placed a test order and seen how it appears in Orders.
6. You know the restock rule: delivered units minus pre-orders.

Get PreOrder Pilot for Wix Stores ↗

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• PreOrder Pilot for Wix Stores
• WooCommerce backorders vs pre-orders
• PreOrder Pilot for WooCommerce
• All PreOrder Pilot guides