STOQ Shopify Help: Preorders, Deposits and Restock Alerts

Each setting below touches money, stock or a customer promise. That is why they are worth a second pair of eyes.

Offer structure. One offer per launch or product group, with the name shown in cart and checkout, button text, badge, an optional disclaimer, a shipping timeline message, discount, start and end dates and order limits.

Deposits and balances. Offers take full payment, a deposit or partial payment, or let the customer choose, which needs a paid plan. Partial payment requires Shopify Payments. An expert plans when the balance is collected and what the customer is told.

Release timing. Each offer sets preorder orders to Unfulfilled, Scheduled or On hold. Scheduled orders release on a date you set; held orders wait for someone to release them. Match that to the warehouse calendar.

Mixed carts. When a cart holds preorder and in-stock items, a shipping setting decides what happens to the rest of the order. Split shipping is available, at a cost someone should check.

Alerts that sell the restock. Automatic or manual alerts, batch sending, email and SMS in several languages, and waitlist sync to Klaviyo for email flows. With short stock, batch size matters.

Demand data. Customer demand and inventory reports show which sold-out items have waitlists, useful when deciding what to reorder.

Self-serve territory. One full-payment preorder offer on a few products is a job for the free plan and STOQ's 24/7 live chat.

Preorders go wrong after checkout, not on the product page. Ask about that half of the job.

Ask how express checkout buttons are handled. The right answer: Shop Pay and Buy it now bypass the preorder purchase option, so those orders don't count as preorders. They should have a plan for that before launch.

Ask how the balance gets collected. Listen for the gateway requirement, the timing and the reminder customers receive. Vague answers here become refund requests later.

Ask how they stop overselling. STOQ wants Continue selling when out of stock switched on for its button to show. A good expert pairs that with order limits per offer.

Ask how alerts are batched. If 500 people wait for 50 units, who hears first, and does everyone get the alert at once? Have them explain the trade-off.

Proposals to question. Deposits promised on a gateway other than Shopify Payments. Custom code for buttons and badges the app already provides. No test orders before go-live.

A paid trial offer. One preorder built end to end: button live, a deposit test order placed, then refunded and canceled so reports stay clean, and the fulfillment status checked in the admin.

Theme app embed. The preorder button appears through STOQ's app embed, which has to be enabled on the theme.

Inventory policy. STOQ checks each variant for Continue selling when out of stock and offers to turn it on. In-stock products can show a preorder button too, through a separate option.

Missing button checklist. App embed off, the variant not allowing out-of-stock sales, the product not in an offer, or the offer status not set to Available now.

Express checkout gap. Shop Pay and Buy it now skip the preorder purchase option, so those orders won't register as preorders.

Plan limits. As of October 2026: Free allows 10 preorders and 30 email alerts a month. Lite costs $10 for 100 preorders and 1,000 alerts, Pro $29 for 400 and 2,000, Unlimited $69 with no caps. Extra preorders cost $0.25 on Lite and $0.10 on Pro, and SMS is $0.025 per message. Paid plans have a 14-day trial.

Reach. The listing names multiple locations and markets, B2B preorders, a POS widget, Shopify Flow and 24 languages.

Clean test data. STOQ asks you to refund and cancel test orders so they don't distort its reports.

These are the jobs merchants usually bring to someone for this app. Scope one at a time.