If you plan to offer pre-orders or continue selling items that are temporarily out of stock, Shopify allows you to enable a setting called "Continue selling when out of stock."
When enabled:
- Orders will still be placed by your customers
- Orders will flow into our system as Backorders
- Once inventory is received, order will automatically allocate and ship using FIFO (First In, First Out)
Important Setup Requirement (Multiple Locations)
Before enabling this setting, you must confirm your inventory is configured correctly across all Shopify locations.
✅Required:
- Ensure the SKU inventory is set to 0 at all locations outside of the ShippingTree app/Location
❗Why this matters:
If inventory exists at another location (ex: office, retail store), Shopify may:
- Assign the order to that location instead of ShippingTree
- Prevent the order from routing to us for fulfillment
- Require manual correction for every order
Step-by-Step Enable "Continue Selling When Out of Stock"
- Go to your product in Shopify
- Navigate to products
- Select the product/SKU you want to enable
- Scroll to the Inventory section
- Locate the inventory settings for the product or variant
- Enable inventory tracking
- Ensure "Track Quantity" (inventory tracked) is selected
- Enable out-of-stock selling
- Check the box: "Continue selling when out of stock"
- Check the box: "Continue selling when out of stock"
- Save your changes
- Click Save in the top right corner
What Happens Next
Once this is enabled:
- Orders will continue to be placed even when inventory is at 0
- Orders will flow into our system as Backorders
- Once inventory is received at the warehouse:
- Orders will automatically allocate
- Orders will ship in FIFO order (oldest orders first)
Best Practices
- Only enable this setting for SKUs you intend to backorder or pre-sell
- Regularly communicate inbound timelines to your customers
- Keep your inventory clean across all locations to avoid routing issues
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.