Introduction
This guide explains how to set up sell ahead (pre-order) products in your Shopify shop based on items arriving on a production order delivery note in TRAEDE.
This setup allows you to sell products before they arrive in your warehouse, while still keeping full control of availability, inventory syncing, and order handling.
(only possible for Traede all-in-one accounts)
Prepare your production order
Go to Production orders in TRAEDE.
Create a new production order or open an existing one.
Add the product(s) you want to sell ahead.
Enter the quantities and click Put into production.
Create a delivery note for the production order when you know the expected arrival date.
Set up sell ahead on the delivery note
Open the relevant delivery note.
Go to the Sell ahead tab.
Select your sell ahead customer (typically Sell ahead B2C).
Click Save settings.
This tells TRAEDE that the selected quantities should be shown as available in your Shopify inventory during the next full inventory sync.
Confirm availability in Shopify
After the next full inventory upload from TRAEDE to Shopify:
The sell-ahead quantities will appear as available inventory on your Shopify B2C location.
Products will behave like regular in-stock products in Shopify unless you specify otherwise.
Important:
Make sure you clearly communicate on your Shopify product page that these are pre-order items and will be shipped at a later date.
How orders are synced
Once enabled:
When a customer places an order in Shopify, inventory is deducted normally.
The order syncs into TRAEDE as a B2C order.
You will see the order in your usual B2C order list.
However, because the product has not arrived yet, you likely should not ship it immediately. To handle this, you must adjust your shipping setup.
Create a product group for pre-order items
If some products are sold only as sell-ahead / pre-orders:
Go to Product groups.
Create a new product group such as Pre-order B2C.
Find the relevant products (e.g., Black jeans).
Select them and use Bulk update data.
Add the new product group to the products.
Adjust your shipping rules
To avoid creating shipments too early:
Locate your current shipping rule for B2C orders (typically "If order type is B2C → create shipment upon order creation").
Create a new rule or adjust the existing setup so that:
If a product on the order belongs to the Pre-order B2C product group,
TRAEDE should not create a shipment automatically.
This prevents warehouse confusion and stops shipments from being created before stock arrives.
Process pre-order shipments when stock arrives
Once products arrive on the delivery date:
Receive the products into inventory.
Go to your B2C order list.
Identify orders containing pre-order items.
Manually create the shipment now that the inventory is available.
From here, the workflow continues as normal.