A pre-order (selling a product before it's made, to ship later) is a quietly powerful tool for makers. It funds your materials up front, proves demand before you commit to a big batch, and smooths out production. But it trades a finished product for a promise, and a promise you can't keep costs you trust. The difference is in how you set it up.
Why pre-orders work
- Cash flow: customers pay before you buy materials, not after.
- Demand-proofing: you make to real orders, not a guess at what'll sell.
- Smoother production: you batch the exact quantity ordered.
Set it up to deliver
The whole game is keeping the promise. Be clear about the ship date, cap the quantity to what you can actually make, and make sure you have (or can get) the materials in time. Treat each pre-order like a made-to-order job: a thing to make, by a date.
- Decide how many you can realistically make and by when.
- Confirm your materials, and order them with lead time to spare.
- Cap the pre-order at that number so you can't oversell.
- Communicate the ship date clearly, and again if anything slips.
A pre-order is a promise with money attached. Only sell as many as you can actually deliver on time.
Don't oversell the limit
The fastest way to ruin a pre-order is to sell more than you can make. Set a hard cap and track it, the same way you'd track stock across channels. The count just happens to be "how many I can still promise" instead of "how many I have."
Run it on real numbers
Pre-orders live or die on whether your materials and timeline are real. From the Maker plan, you can ask Suli whether you have the materials to make a run before you open pre-orders, and turn the run into a work order (up to 10 a month on Maker as a trial and 100 on Team, unlimited on Business and Enterprise). You only promise what you can make, and you make what you promised.