For the purposes of demonstrating pre-orders functionality on Sellar, we’ll be using the example of a brand new product that will be made available in multiple formats.

However, the pre-orders feature set is fairly general purpose by design. It can be used to serve other use cases which are also described below.

Go to your product list to select either an existing product or create new one. See this guide for more detail on how to create a product.

At this point you might be thinking: How come I haven’t set date to describe when this product will be available yet?

'Available from' dates are assigned to individual product items. This provides more flexibility and permits you to set a different date per product item should you wish. This also permits other use cases beyond running pre-orders for brand new products. For example, let's say you're out of stock on kegs but still have plenty of cans in stock. If you know when your kegs will be back in stock, you can accept pre-orders for that returning stock by setting an 'available from' date on your kegs whilst continuing to sell your cans on general release.

Create a product item and define your container properties and allergens. On the next page you’ll be asked if this product is for:

Select the Future release option and you’ll be asked to define an 'available from' date. This date works in conjunction with your delivery schedules. If you don’t have these setup already, please do so now. See the delivery help guide for more detail.

A customer who falls within my direct delivery areas has a postcode which is served by the following delivery schedule:

They place their order on Tuesday 7th. The product they pre-order has an available from date of Monday 20th. Therefore, on the order:

A customer outside of my direct delivery area sees my courier schedule.

They place their order on Wednesday 8th at 9:00am. The product they pre-order has an 'available from' date of Monday 20th. Therefore, on the order:

In either instance, your customers are presented with an extra confirmation checkbox prior to placement of their order that asks them to acknowledge the 'available from' date in case they were expecting to receive this product sooner.

How you manage your stock for pre-order products is entirely flexible. There are 3 ways. The first two will be familiar as they can be used for products listed for general release.

When the product is packaged and you have a finite amount in the warehouse available for customers to order. Defining stock using the total on-hand stock field will function like any other product does today. If you have a brewery management system integrated and the product mapped, stock levels will sync as normal.

Toggle this option on when you’re confident you won’t oversell during your pre-order campaign. You’ll be able to receive orders even if your total on-hand stock is set to 0. Finalising any orders containing this product decrements the total on-hand stock.

Customers can continue to order this product even when this value is negative. This approach is useful when you don’t have the stock on-hand yet but are happy to take an unlimited number of pre-orders.

This option is reserved for only when you have an available from date set. The incoming stock field allows you to define a finite amount of stock you will have on that date in the future. Customers can place pre-orders for this stock and Sellar will help you from overselling by limiting sales to this exact amount.

Upon on the available from date arriving, your incoming stock will be transferred (added) to the total on-hand stock field. Your total on-hand stock value may negative prior to this date if you have finalised any orders during this time. By adding the incoming stock value to the total on-hand stock value, we ensure the remaining stock available is accurate and accounts for any orders you may have already finalised.

To ensure accurate stock levels during your pre-order period, Sellar will control all stock values whenever you have defined an incoming stock value; even if you have a brewery management system integrated. This is explained in the example below.

Let’s take a look at the lifecycle of a pre-order product and it’s stock values when using the incoming stock field. In this example, we are going to assume we have a brewery management system (BMS) integrated and the product doesn’t get packaged until 19/01/25.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening step by step:

Step 1 - 06/01/25: I setup my product with an 'available from' date of 20/01/25 and set a value of 50 in the incoming stock field. My BMS has a stock value of 0 at this point.

Step 2 - 10/01/25: In the first few days I receive several pre-orders for a total of 30 of this product. These order requests increment the ‘committed’ stock field as normal.

Step 3- 17/01/25: As my pre-order campaign approaches the end, I’ve received pre-orders for a total of 45 of this product item. I’ve deliberately not finalised these orders yet to give my customers the chance to make any last minute additions to their order.

Step 4 - 18/01/25: I finalise these orders to prepare for deliveries in a few days time. This decrements the total on-hand stock to a value of 45. During this time I receive two more order requests. At all times, the ‘available’ stock value ensures I don’t oversell

Step 5 - 19/01/25: I finalise the remaining order requests. On this day, my product is packaged with a slightly better-than-expected yield of 51. My brewery management system attempts to update Sellar with this value. Because this is before the 'available from' date defined on Sellar, this value is ignored. Sellar retains control of the stock values to ensure they’re managed correctly.

Step 6 - 20/01/25: On the available from date, Sellar transfers the incoming stock value of 50 into the total on-hand field. This initially nets out at a value of 3 (50 + (-47)). However, moments later, my brewery management system sends the value stock value of 4 via the integration accounting for the extra item that was packaged. As the available from date has now past, this value is then used to update the total on-hand stock value on Sellar. From this point forward, stock is managed as normal.

You can limit the amount of stock your customers can add to their basket per product item per order. This prevents any one customer from attempting to secure lots of your highly sought after limited edition release.