We've just come to using this feature as we've never previously wanted to sell before having the physical stock. I can see now why we've never utilised it before.... it is completely not managing customer expectations onsite and can lead to us ending up with a flood of dissatisfied customers if our delivery doesnt arrive as expected or we end up with too many pre-orders to fulfil within the dispatch delay. This simply needs to say "Pre-order" instead of "Available" on site and it would be an improvement. If it could go one step further and display a disclaimer box like the "pre-launch" feature then even better. I'd say a pre-order feature is more invaluable than the pre-launch feature anyway as it allows us to actually take orders rather than just register interest. Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime 3 years on the board and a significant number of votes, hasn't this been reviewed yet?

Any movement on this Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime as the way its presenting for us is just not workable, and as others says leads to issues with customers. I just asked support if design could change "available" to "available to pre-order" in ORANGE, but was told to post on here instead, as it cant be done. It really is very misleading how it presents right now, and being very much a seasonal business we rely on this heavily to help gain some pre orders in the lead up to our busy season and to keep the lights switched on...

We have lost count of how many priority shipping payments we have had to refund where people think that will get an item next day. So the presentation (ignoring the fact customers are not fully reading things) is leading to this outcome, so to me that needs sorting fairly quickly, hopefully it can be but I see this has been running for some time (Years!), and been similar requests previously.

Just remember when we refund we PAY to refund. So this is costing the business cash and loss of trust. Trus is one of the 4 pillars of Googles EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and its now in full play through the algorythm to the SERPS results presentation and no longer in testing, so is worthy of being resolved before Google pick up on this and black flag it! I cant see it needing 3 years to commit to fix it, and then fix it :)

Google are being really hot on EEAT sitting at a conference with them 2 weeks ago, so its only a matter of time before this will bite all CL customers using it...

Thanks

Scott

I really want to use this, but have had several customers complain they don't have their order because of misleading wording, so I can't use it. This means I lose out to competitors when they get stock a few days before us.

Our other issue is the back in stock emails are sent when you put something on forward order. These need to be sent when the items actually come into stock.

I think the idea itself is very good and clearly works, but I think some of the issue is the wording used and it would then be a very effective tool. When we used it we had success but did have customers contact our shops expecting the bike to be in the company somewhere. Similar to any live/stock feed products the wording could be a little more accurate to make sure the website is displaying what stock is in the company (in stock) and what stock can be ordered from supplier. Honesty being the best policy.

Thanks Neil, we appreciate that this option is new, and will have ongoing development, and looks very promising. However, there is another problem with the 'available for pre-order' option on purchase orders. We have been communicating with Roxie because we have found that items continue to display as available even when they have been pre sold, and delivered, she says this bug is still exists, but will be brought to the development team's attention.

I've merged the two posts together.

We been using this functionality on two test sites for a number of months, and both have taken a significant volume (millions of pounds) of business and not reported any significant customer service issues. The date of delivery is shown in the basket, shipping options and on the order confirmation email. The stock shows as 'Available' not 'In stock' until very close to the purchase orders due date - I agree we likely need to be more intelligent here and keep it as 'Available'.

That said as with any new feature we'll want to improve it over time, and I expect many purchase orders may arrive at the incorrect time so I'm open to suggestions here.

What should we say?