Managing pre-orders and backorders

ArrivesBy works with Shopify's existing Purchase Orders feature to show delivery estimates based on when items will be back in stock.

This works for pre-order items that will begin shipping out on a certain date and for sold out items on backorder with an expected re-stock date.

You can learn more about Shopify's purchase order feature here.

Even if this feature is not part of your normal workflow, you can still use it with ArrivesBy.

We're going to use the Purple variant of our ArrivesBy T-shirt product as an example case.

To get started, first go to ArrivesBy > Settings > Inventory management and turn on 'Use Shopify inventory management'.

Note: This only works for stores using Shopify’s native inventory system. ArrivesBy requires access to read your inventory data.

Now in the Shopify Admin head to Products > Purchase orders.

There's a lot on this form, but most of it is optional or only used for reporting. Let's go over each item that you need and what you can ignore.

Supplier

The supplier can be real, made up, a dropship vendor, a factory in China. It doesn't really matter (unless you use it for reporting later), you just need to put something.

Destination

Should be a location stocking your items (any product variants).

Payment terms: Not important

Supplier currency: Not important

Estimated arrival:

This is very important, set it to the day you expect the items to arrive and be ready to ship out to customers.

Note: This cannot be changed later without creating a brand new purchase order.

Shipping carrier: Not important

Tracking number: Not important

Add products:

Pick items that will be available on the estimated arrival date.

For each item:

Supplier SKU: not important

Quantity: At least 1. If you know the number that will arrive that's better.

Cost: Not important

Tax: Not important

Additional details: Not important

To finish:

Save as draft > Confirm everything >Mark as ordered

Here's a screenshot of how the Purchase Order form looks for our Purple T-Shirt example.

To check that everything worked, you can view the variant in the Shopify admin.

In the Inventory section you should see an Incoming tab with a link to the Purchase order you just created.

To see it in action, check your product page. It might take a moment for the variant data to refresh in our system. If you're not seeing the correct ship date, refresh the page.

Here you can see that the shirt is expected to ship on August 15th, matching the date we set in the purchase order.

The final step is very important. Once the items are available for sale you need to mark them as received in the purchase order.

This will mark the item as back in stock and normal delivery estimates will display again.

Note that if you do not mark the inventory as received by the date of expected arrival, no delivery estimate will show. This is done to prevent confusion for the customer.
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This is an advanced feature. If you need any help, reach out via live chat and we will be happy to assist.