Defer (pre)order preparation date
Are you willing to defer the preparation of some orders, while still reserving stock? Look no further!
In some cases, such as preorder sales, you might want to create orders that should only be sent later. You could create orders without creating the fulfillments, but then, you wouldn’t reserve stock… Let’s explore solutions that properly reserve stock for orders to be transmitted later.
Defer the fulfillment date in Bigblue
You can manually set up a custom fulfillment date for any order that is not yet transmitted to the warehouse. To do so, go to Bigblue > Orders, find your order and either:
Create the fulfillment (by following this guide), tick Fulfill at and choose a date and time
Edit the existing fulfillment, tick Fulfill at a specific date and choose a date and time
[Shopify] Defer the fulfillment date using Order Metafields
🙋🏾 When should I use this? This is very adequate for preorder selling.
It enables adjusting the fulfillment date for each order from your Shopify admin, in a way that you can easily automate using Shopify Flow. It’s perfect for preorders!
Interested but using a different CMS? Please contact our support team with your needs.
- In Shopify Settings > Custom data > Orders, add a metafield with the button Add definition. For namespace & key, choose
bigblue.fulfill_timeand for type, choose Date and time
- From the Shopify order page, for any order that has not reached its fulfillment time on Bigblue yet, you can now postpone the transmission of the order with this new metafield.
- To automate the adjustment of the value of this metafield, you can set up a Shopify Flow for orders matching certain conditions, such as using a specific delivery method or including specific products. The value indicated for the metafield must be in the RFC-3339 format, for example: 2024-09-20T08:00:00Z — otherwise it won't work. See example below.
The date and time will be adjusted based on the local timezone of the warehouse.
[Shopify] Defer the fulfillment date with Cart Attributes
🙋🏻♂️ When should I use this? This lets customers choose their fulfillment date in their cart.
It can be adequate for your B2B shop. This is an advanced setup. You need to be able to edit your theme code or use API calls. Consider getting help from a development team.
Interested but using a different CMS? Please contact our support team with your needs.
- You need to add a new field, named bigblue-fulfill-time, to the Shopify Order, that should appear in the Additional details section
- Then, for each order, you can choose to fill this field with your desired fulfillment date in the RFC-3339 format. Any other format will result in Bigblue ignoring this field.
The date and time you provide will be adjusted based on the local time zone of the warehouse.
- Test your setup! On the Shopify order page, make sure that the additional details are displayed. On Bigblue > Order page > Fulfillment part, make sure that you see the defered fulfillment date under Fulfillment Date