Backorder

A backorder is an item that a customer has ordered but that is not in stock and will therefore be delivered at a later date. The purchase has been completed, and the item has been reserved for the customer. It just needs to be shipped from the supplier. The term refers to both the individual item and the situation itself: “the item is on backorder.”

Backorders occur when a store sells items it doesn’t have on the shelf, either intentionally as part of its business model or because the inventory count was incorrect. In Shoporama, this is managed on a per-product basis using the “Allow Negative Inventory” setting, which lets the customer make a purchase even if the inventory is zero or below.

Backorders must be handled in two ways. The customer needs to know when the item will arrive, and the other items in the order don’t necessarily have to wait for it. The latter is resolved with a partial shipment, where you ship what you have in stock, and the rest will be shipped when it arrives. Read more in the article “Partial Shipments: Ship Part of the Order Now and the Rest Later.”

If you send a product feed to Google Shopping, you can mark backordered items as “backorder” instead of “in stock,” so that the ads show the correct delivery status.