Shopify Preorder Shipping Dates: Fixed Date or Period

A preorder campaign that runs for one drop can carry one calendar date. “Ships 15 October” is precise, everyone who orders gets the same answer, and when the stock lands you are done.

An always-on preorder is different. A made-to-order line, a product you restock continuously, a bestseller you keep selling through a gap — these run for months, and a fixed calendar date starts drifting the moment it is set. Someone ordering in week one reads a sensible six-week wait. Someone ordering in week seven reads a date that has already passed. Nothing is broken; the date simply says the same thing forever while the calendar moves.

That is the problem the Period option solves, and it is a different setting rather than a different app.

A shipping date on a preorder is one value on the Selling Plan assigned to the variant. That value can be a specific Date, or a Period — a timeframe such as four weeks.

The difference is what the value is measured from. A Date is absolute: 15 October is 15 October whenever the shopper reads it. A Period is relative to the order, so it is recalculated for each shopper — a four-week Period always reads roughly four weeks out from the day someone is looking at it, and it moves forward on its own without you touching the campaign.

So the choice is really a question about your campaign, not about your product:

• You know the arrival date — a container landing, a print run finishing, a launch day. Use a Date.
• You know the lead time, not the date — made to order, restocking on a cycle, production that starts when the order does. Use a Period.

A Period is not an estimate the app invents. It is the lead time you already quote, expressed as a timeframe instead of a day.

Preorder is switched on per variant: open the product in Timesact, edit the variant, enable Pre-order, assign the Pre-order template that carries its storefront copy, and save. From there, the value and the words that display it live in two different places, and keeping them straight is most of the setup.

The value goes on the Selling Plan. Open Settings → Selling Plan, open the plan assigned to that product, and set the Shipping Date to either a specific Date or a Period. The plan holds the timing, so every product and variant assigned to that same plan reads the same shipping date — which is exactly what you want for a whole made-to-order line, and the reason to create a second Selling Plan when one product runs on a different lead time.

The wording goes in the template. The {{shippingDate}} variable is what puts the value in front of a shopper, and it belongs in your Pre-order template message and cart label. It renders whichever form the plan holds — a specific date, a Period or an Interval — so you write the sentence once and it stays correct if you later switch the plan from one to the other. If you want a countdown instead of a date, {{daysLeftUntilShippingDate}} counts down to the shipping date.

If you use the variable, set the value behind it. A variable with nothing behind it renders the literal text variable_not_set on the page, so the plan’s date field is what makes the sentence read properly.

The form you choose also decides how Shopify files the order after checkout: a specific Date marks it Scheduled, a Period or Interval marks it On Hold, and leaving the Shipping Date Not set keeps it Unfulfilled. If your fulfilment runs off Unfulfilled orders — a 3PL pulling the queue, or a warehouse you would rather not have splitting shipments — leave the Shipping Date Not set and put the timeframe in your Pre-order template message and cart label instead.

Three more pieces complete the setup. The stock-management rule decides when the preorder turns on — Pre-order only when Out of Stock, Pre-order regardless of levels, or Pre-order only when Shopify inventory is available. It lives on the variant rather than on the plan: open the product in Timesact, edit the variant, and pick the option under Stock Management. The Selling Plan carries the charge timing — payment at checkout, or an upfront amount with the balance collected on a Final payment date — and its Selling Plan Name is the line shoppers read on cart line items, at checkout and in past order details. The separate Plan Name field on the same screen is internal — customers never see it. And the Timesact App Embed turns those elements on: enable it on the theme you publish, under Online Store → Themes → Customize → App Embeds, then click Save in the theme editor — the embed takes effect once the theme is saved, and it is set per theme.

Campaign dates run in UTC+0 (London time), so set a start or end date against that clock rather than your local one.

Most shipping-date confusion is actually one of these three being read as another. They are set in different places and do different jobs.

They are often close together in practice — a campaign that closes when stock lands, charges the balance the same week, and quotes that week as the shipping date — but they are set separately and can be set to whatever each one needs. Getting a campaign end date right is its own decision, and so is when the balance comes out on a deposit setup.

The shipping date is set by you rather than chosen by the shopper, and every customer who preorders a given variant gets the same timing. That is usually what you want — one lead time, stated once.

When you genuinely need two, the supported route is to make the timeline part of the product. Create separate variants or options — “Standard” and “Priority”, say — and assign each one its own Selling Plan with its own Shipping Date. The shopper then picks the timing by picking the variant, and each one carries its own answer. For a true calendar date-picker at checkout, that is what a dedicated delivery-date app does, and our support team can look at how one fits alongside your preorder setup.

Setting a shipping date and showing it to shoppers is part of the standard preorder setup, available from the moment you install.

A fixed date is the right answer when you know the day. A Period is the right answer when you know the wait — and it keeps the page honest for a campaign that outlives any single calendar date. Both are one field on the Selling Plan and one variable in your template, so switching between them as a campaign changes shape takes a minute rather than a rebuild.

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