If you know a new shipment of a popular sofa or mattress is arriving soon, you don’t have to mark it as “Out of Stock” and lose out on sales. Instead, you can enable backorders, allowing customers to purchase and reserve the item before it even hits your warehouse.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Navigate to Products in your main left-hand menu and click on the item you want to edit.

2. Scroll down the page until you find the Product Data box.

3. On the left side of this box, click the Inventory tab.

4. First, make sure the box next to Manage stock is checked. (Backorders will not work if the system isn’t tracking your inventory numbers).

5. Look for the drop-down menu labeled Allow backorders?.

6. Click the drop-down and choose one of the following options:

   1. Do not allow: Customers cannot buy the item if your stock quantity reaches zero.

   2. Allow, but notify customer: Customers can buy the item, but a note will appear on the product page letting them know it is “Available on backorder.” This is highly recommended to manage customer expectations!

   3. Allow: Customers can buy the item normally, and they will not see any special notifications about it being out of stock.

7. Scroll to the top right of your screen and click the blue Update button to save your changes.

Good to Know: When you allow backorders, your “Stock quantity” number will go into the negatives as people buy it (for example, -3). When your new shipment arrives, simply update that number to reflect your actual positive inventory!