Take a look at any great store with a sizeable customer base. At first glance you may just assume that those businesses are hugely successful due to their product offering or services supplied. Whilst this is somewhat true they are also the ones that create demand for products or services and are able to charge or take payment well in advance. Don’t get me wrong, this is not possible in all instances but a lot of businesses would be able to charge for something in advance, whether that be a membership a cover for the repairs or first call out, instant supply of a product and so forth.
Businesses such as Tesco, Asda and all the big supermarket players do this incredibly well with items such as computer games. Regardless of whether you personally buy computer games, there is no doubt that it is a huge market that generates billions in revenue each and every year. The next time you visit Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s or somewhere similar you will see that they sell some computer games well in advance of their release through a pre-order system. A seemingly endless stream of individuals opt to invest a small amount of their money in advance for the privilege of receiving the game that bit sooner.
This is a clever strategy and it kills multiple birds with one stone. Huge benefits can be had by companies offering such a service and some of those benefits include:
- Receiving partial payment upfront and having to provide nothing in return. This not only secures sales and significantly reduces the risk of unsold stock, but it also enables the company to either re-invest that revenue into other projects or to develop the business.
- Once a customer has paid their deposit at one of those stores it is undoubtedly going to influence where that person shops. Suddenly by issuing a small investment into that supermarket, or it could be any business, people begin to build loyalty which ensures that they shop there. This is all likely to happen subconsciously but it is likely going to happen one way or another.
- Whilst stores such as Tesco and Asda are unlikely to gain huge benefits from further customer data, by issuing a pre-sale they are able to use this information to their advantage by ensuring that they provide regular updates and frequent points of contact with those pre-order customers.
Whilst all of this sounds great and rather enticing, you are most probably wondering where the WooCommerce Pre-Orders extension comes into this. In summary the WooCommerce Pre-Orders extension will ensure that all of the above is possible for your business to provide this feature to your customers.
Through this plugin you can sell products before they are even in stock and you can set whether your customers are charged upfront or once the new product is released. Set the date and time that the product is expected to be available and easily amend the expected release date so that your customers know when their item is likely to be available. You will also have the ability to email customers that have placed a pre-order or cancel any pre-orders that are no longer going ahead.
A powerful feature provided by this extension is the ability to charge customers either upon the date that the sale / pre-order is made or whether payment is withdrawn once the pre-order is available. The later option is only available and possible if your payment gateway allows such processes to happen.
So what are you waiting for, build brand awareness, customer loyalty and improve cash flow as well as increasing your stock to sales efficiency through this marvelous plugin. All of this is available by using the WooCommerce Pre-Orders extension.