While SKULabs supports strategies to manage backorders, it's first important to consider directly managing which items you accept backorders for in your sales channel rather than SKULabs. These are often preferred and offer the most control.

Many sales channels, including Shopify, feature options that allow customers to purchase out of stock or pre-sale products and also support custom notices, flags, or statuses when orders for a backordered product is placed. Depending on your channel, look for options similar to "Allow selling when out of stock" or "Do not track inventory".

Others, such as Amazon, feature ways to set explicit restock dates and quantities in advance using functionality within SKULabs.

Additionally, simple communication options for backorders can range from checkout messages to or emails and back-in-stock timelines for customers who are willing to wait. These are best handled by other apps on your channels marketplace.

By default, SKULabs pushes the "free" quantity of an item or kit to your sales channels. This "free' count is calculated using the item's "on hand" quantity in your warehouse minus any stock currently "reserved" by open orders waiting to be shipped.

However, SKULabs also features customizable stock rules that can be adjusted per store or even per listing to override and control the quantity you want SKULabs to push to your stores as available inventory.

Say you want to pre-sell 50 units of a new product on your store before marking it as sold out. Simply change that listing's stock sync rule in SKULabs from the default free to free+50.

As long the item or kit has 0 quantity on hand in SKULabs, you will be able to accept orders and reserve stock for up to 50 units until the free quantity reaches -50, which will then automatically mark the product out of stock on your channel.

Once stock is finally received into the warehouse, the orders would be automatically released to pick, pack, and ship the preorders awaiting fulfillment.

Tip: After your pre-sale period, just remove the stock rule you customized by returning it to the default free and you'll be able to sell the product as normal going forward.

Combined with strategies on how to identify and tag backorders in SKULabs,

you will have a solid foundation for communicating with your team and handling these orders.

Want to allow preorders for product but don't need to set a maximum quantity to sell before marking out of stock?

Just set the stock rule for a larger increased free count. Something like free+100000 or any other reasonable maximum your team can still fulfill will work well.

Larger preorder periods introduce more unfulfillable preorders in the fulfillment queue. This is where SKULabs order filters come in handy by helping your team exclude the orders they don't need to work on, such as preorders still awaiting inventory, while fulfillable orders are handled first.