Preorder Availability Lite for WooCommerce

Sell upcoming products without building a full preorder payment system.

Preorder Availability Lite for WooCommerce helps store owners display upcoming or incoming products as preorder products, show availability dates, track preorder items in WooCommerce orders, and send manual customer update emails.

It is built for merchants who need a lightweight preorder availability workflow without the complexity and risk of delayed payment capture, deposits, custom gateways, or automatic future charges.

Important:
This plugin is not a delayed-payment preorder gateway.
It does not capture payments later.
It does not store payment tokens.
It does not create a custom payment gateway.
It does not add deposits or partial payments.
Payments are handled by WooCommerce and your active payment gateways at checkout.

Typical Use Cases

- Upcoming product launches
- Back-in-stock or incoming inventory campaigns
- Limited preorder windows
- New collection launches
- Seasonal product releases
- Products that ship after a known availability date
- Stores that want preorder visibility without changing payment flows

What Makes It Useful

Preorder Availability Lite focuses on the practical parts of preorder operations:

- Show a preorder badge
- Show an availability date
- Change the add-to-cart button text
- Save preorder information into WooCommerce orders
- Display preorder details in cart, checkout, order details, and emails
- Filter orders that contain preorder items
- View preorder customers by product
- Send manual update emails when the availability date changes or the product becomes available

The plugin intentionally avoids heavy payment, gateway, subscription, deposit, and split-shipment logic. This keeps the workflow safer, lighter, and easier to understand for store owners.

Key Features

- Enable preorder per product
- Enable preorder per variation
- Availability date per simple product
- Availability date per product variation
- Parent product fallback settings for variable products
- Preorder badge on shop/archive product listings
- Preorder badge on single product pages
- Customizable default badge text
- Customizable default button text
- Customizable availability message
- "Pre-order now" button text support
- "Ships after {date}" style availability message
- Preorder details shown in cart item data
- Preorder details shown at checkout
- Preorder details saved to WooCommerce order items
- Preorder details shown in customer order details
- Preorder details shown in WooCommerce emails
- Order note added when an order contains preorder items
- WooCommerce orders list preorder column
- WooCommerce orders list preorder filter
- Product-specific preorder customer list
- Manual customer update email screen
- Email templates for availability date updates and now available messages
- Action Scheduler support when available
- WooCommerce HPOS compatible
- Uses WooCommerce order APIs
- Works with simple and variable products
- Translation-ready .pot file included
- No external API calls
- No telemetry
- No license server
- No advertising or upsell notices

What This Plugin Does Not Do

- No delayed payment capture
- No pay-later gateway
- No custom payment gateway
- No deposit payments
- No partial payments
- No automatic future charge
- No customer card storage
- No payment token handling
- No subscription integration
- No split shipment workflow
- No automatic cancellation
- No automatic order release
- No dynamic pricing
- No preorder discount engine
- No countdown timer
- No marketplace vendor integration

Why No Delayed Payment Capture?

Delayed payment capture and future charging depend heavily on payment gateways, token storage, compliance rules, order status logic, failed payment recovery, refunds, and customer expectations.

Preorder Availability Lite avoids that entire risk area.

Instead, it keeps WooCommerce checkout normal and focuses on preorder availability display, order tracking, and customer communication.

If your store needs a full delayed-payment preorder gateway, this plugin is not the right fit. If you want a stable, lightweight preorder availability and admin tracking tool, this plugin is designed for that workflow.

Requirements

- WordPress 7.0 or newer
- WooCommerce 10.0 or newer
- PHP 7.4 or newer
- WooCommerce must be installed and active
- WordPress administrator access
- MySQL or MariaDB supported by your WordPress installation
- JavaScript enabled in the browser for product variation UI
- Working WordPress/WooCommerce email delivery for customer update emails
- No external API required

Recommended Environment

- WordPress 7.0+
- WooCommerce 10.0+
- PHP 8.3+
- WooCommerce HPOS enabled
- Modern WooCommerce-compatible theme

Tested Environment

- WordPress 7.0
- WooCommerce 10.9.1
- PHP 8.3.31
- MariaDB
- WooCommerce HPOS enabled
- Storefront theme
- WP_DEBUG enabled during testing
- Classic Checkout and Checkout Blocks basic order flow tested

Installation

1. Download the main package from Codester.
2. Unzip the package on your computer.
3. Inside the package, locate the installable WordPress plugin ZIP:

   preorder-availability-lite-for-woocommerce.zip

4. Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard.
5. Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
6. Upload preorder-availability-lite-for-woocommerce.zip.
7. Click Install Now.
8. Activate the plugin.
9. Make sure WooCommerce is installed and active.
10. Go to WooCommerce > Preorder Availability.

Important:
Do not upload the full Codester main package directly to WordPress.
The Codester main package contains documentation and extra files.
Upload only the installable plugin ZIP to WordPress.

Basic Setup

1. Open a WooCommerce product.
2. Go to the product data area.
3. Open the Preorder Availability settings.
4. Enable preorder.
5. Set the availability date.
6. Optionally customize the badge text, button text, or message.
7. Save the product.
8. Visit the product page and confirm the preorder badge and message.
9. Add the product to the cart.
10. Complete a test checkout.
11. Confirm preorder details in the order details and WooCommerce emails.

Variable Product Setup

1. Open a variable WooCommerce product.
2. Configure preorder settings at the parent product level if you want a fallback.
3. Open each variation that needs a different preorder date.
4. Enable preorder for that variation.
5. Set the variation availability date.
6. Save the product.
7. Test the product page by selecting the variation.
8. Confirm the preorder message updates correctly.

Order Management

When an order contains a preorder item, the plugin saves preorder details into the WooCommerce order item meta and adds an order note.

Store owners can:

- See preorder indicators in the WooCommerce orders list
- Filter orders that contain preorder items
- Open the order and review preorder item details
- View preorder customers by product
- Send manual customer update emails

Customer Update Emails

Go to WooCommerce > Preorder Availability to view preorder customers and send manual updates.

Available email use cases include:

- Availability date update
- Product is now available
- Custom preorder update

Emails are sent manually by the store owner. The plugin does not automatically email customers when a product is saved.

Security and Stability Notes

- Admin-only preorder customer tools
- Capability checks for WooCommerce managers/admins
- Nonce checks for admin actions
- WooCommerce order APIs are used
- HPOS compatibility declared and tested
- No direct order-table assumptions
- No frontend tracking
- No telemetry
- No external API calls
- No payment gateway changes
- No automatic payment actions
- No automatic order cancellation
- No automatic split shipment logic

Files Included

- preorder-availability-lite-for-woocommerce.zip - installable WordPress plugin ZIP
- documentation.html - user documentation
- changelog.txt - changelog
- privacy-and-limitations.md - privacy and limitation notes
- LICENSE or LICENSE-NOTICE - license information
- screenshots - real product screenshots
- codester-listing.md - listing text source
- test-report.md - tested environment and QA summary
- competitor-matrix.md - competitor research summary

Support

Support is provided by SG Group.

Support covers:
- Installation issues
- Reproducible plugin bugs
- Documented preorder availability features
- Basic configuration questions

Support does not include:
- Custom development
- Custom payment gateway integration
- Delayed payment capture setup
- Deposit payment setup
- Subscription integration
- Split shipment customization
- Third-party theme redesign
- Fixing unrelated WooCommerce or server issues

Contact:
https://sggroup.jp/contact/

Codester Profile:
https://www.codester.com/SGGro...

Author:
SG Group

Trademark Note

This product is an independent plugin by SG Group.
It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by WooCommerce, Woo, Automattic, or WordPress.
WooCommerce and WordPress are trademarks of their respective owners.

Changelog

Version 1.0.0

Initial release.

- Product-level preorder availability settings
- Variation-level preorder availability settings
- Preorder badge display
- Availability date display
- Preorder button text support
- Cart, checkout, order, and email item meta
- WooCommerce order note support
- WooCommerce order list preorder column
- WooCommerce order filter
- Product-specific preorder customer list
- Manual customer update emails
- WooCommerce HPOS compatibility
- Translation-ready .pot file
- No delayed payment capture
- No custom payment gateway
- No external API calls

- Enable preorder per WooCommerce product
- Enable preorder per product variation
- Set availability dates for upcoming or incoming products
- Show preorder badges on shop/archive pages
- Show preorder badges on single product pages
- Change add-to-cart button text to preorder-focused wording
- Display availability messages such as "Ships after {date}"
- Save preorder information to WooCommerce order items
- Show preorder details in cart, checkout, order details, and emails
- Add preorder information to WooCommerce order notes
- Add preorder column to the WooCommerce orders list
- Filter WooCommerce orders that contain preorder items
- View preorder customers by product
- Send manual customer update emails
- Includes availability date update and now available email templates
- Supports simple and variable products
- Variation-level availability date support
- WooCommerce HPOS compatible
- Uses WooCommerce order APIs
- Translation-ready .pot file included
- No delayed payment capture
- No custom payment gateway
- No deposits or partial payments
- No external API calls
- No telemetry

- WordPress 7.0 or newer
- WooCommerce 10.0 or newer
- PHP 7.4 or newer
- WooCommerce must be installed and active
- WordPress administrator access
- MySQL or MariaDB supported by your WordPress installation
- JavaScript enabled in the browser for product variation UI
- Working WordPress/WooCommerce email delivery for customer update emails
- No external API required

Recommended:
- PHP 8.3 or newer
- WooCommerce HPOS enabled
- Modern WooCommerce-compatible theme

Tested with:
- WordPress 7.0
- WooCommerce 10.9.1
- PHP 8.3.31
- Storefront theme
- WooCommerce HPOS enabled

Installation

1. Download the main package from Codester.
2. Unzip the package on your computer.
3. Locate the installable WordPress plugin ZIP:

   preorder-availability-lite-for-woocommerce.zip

4. Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard.
5. Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
6. Upload preorder-availability-lite-for-woocommerce.zip.
7. Click Install Now.
8. Click Activate.
9. Make sure WooCommerce is installed and active.
10. Go to WooCommerce > Preorder Availability.

Important:
Do not upload the full Codester main package directly to WordPress.
The Codester main package includes documentation and extra files.
Only upload the installable plugin ZIP to WordPress.

Basic Product Setup

1. Open Products in your WordPress admin area.
2. Edit a WooCommerce product.
3. Open the Preorder Availability settings.
4. Enable preorder.
5. Set the availability date.
6. Optionally customize the badge text, button text, or preorder message.
7. Save the product.
8. View the product page to confirm the preorder badge and availability message.

Variable Product Setup

1. Open a variable WooCommerce product.
2. Configure parent-level preorder settings if you want a fallback.
3. Open each variation that needs its own preorder date.
4. Enable preorder for the variation.
5. Set the variation availability date.
6. Save the product.
7. Test the frontend by selecting the variation.

Order Tracking

1. Place a test order with a preorder product.
2. Open WooCommerce > Orders.
3. Check the Preorder column.
4. Use the preorder filter to show orders containing preorder items.
5. Open the order to review preorder item meta and order notes.

Preorder Customer Updates

1. Go to WooCommerce > Preorder Availability.
2. Select a preorder product.
3. Review the preorder customer list.
4. Choose an email template.
5. Edit the subject and message if needed.
6. Preview the message.
7. Send the update manually.

Important Payment Note

This plugin does not delay, capture, split, retry, or process payments.
It is not a payment gateway.
It does not add deposits or partial payments.
WooCommerce and your active payment gateways handle payments at checkout.