Description
RestockBeacon Preorder & Back in Stock for WooCommerce is a WooCommerce preorder plugin and back in stock notifier for products that are out of stock, on backorder, or not released yet. Let shoppers preorder upcoming products, capture demand with an out of stock waitlist, and automatically send back in stock email notifications when inventory returns.
Instead of hiding an out-of-stock product, turn it into a preorder, a backorder, or a “Notify me when available” waitlist sign-up. When you restock, the plugin emails everyone who was waiting, in the background.
High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS) compatible, WooCommerce Cart & Checkout Blocks ready, works with simple and variable products, translation ready, and GDPR friendly.
FRONT-END DEMO | BACK-END DEMO | DOCUMENTATION | Ask Questions | GET PRO
What you can do
- Sell preorders — take orders for products before they launch and show a clear “Preorder — ships on {date}” label and message.
- Capture back in stock demand — replace the Add to Cart button on out of stock items with a themed “Notify me” button and email capture form.
- Send automatic restock emails — the instant stock is replenished, every customer on the waitlist gets a back in stock notification email.
- Support backorders — build on WooCommerce’s native backorders with a clearer badge and label.
- Manage everything from one screen — a campaign-based admin app to target products, schedule windows, and style the storefront.
Examples of Preorder & Back in Stock for WooCommerce
- Preorder Button with Ship Date
- Notify Me Back in Stock Form
- Variable Product Preorder
- Deposit / Partial Payment (PRO)
- Preorder Discount & Early Bird Pricing (PRO)
- Preorder Countdown, Progress Bar & Info Panel (PRO)
- Limited Preorders (PRO)
- Sold Out Preorder with Notify Me (PRO)
- Coming Soon Countdown (PRO)
- Restock Countdown (PRO)
Features Overview (Free Version)
- Preorder, Backorder & Notify Me modes — all three driven by targeting campaigns, so you never edit products one by one.
- Custom Add to Cart button text, an under-button message, and a preorder note on the cart and checkout (classic and Cart/Checkout Blocks).
- “Notify me when available” button — a fully styled button that opens a modal popup sign-up form; customize the button, form, colors, radius and confirmation message per campaign.
- Out of stock waitlist capture — with email validation, GDPR consent checkbox, honeypot and rate-limiting anti-spam, and logged-in email prefill.
- Automatic back in stock email — sent to waitlisted customers on restock, batched and idempotent so nobody is emailed twice.
- Two themeable WooCommerce emails — Back in Stock and Preorder Confirmation (override in
yourtheme/woocommerce/emails/), with a branded or plain WooCommerce template style and an optional product image. - Waitlist admin screen — browse sign-ups, filter by product and status, and delete individually or in bulk.
- Scheduling — open preorder / back in stock windows with start and end dates.
- Preorder order tagging — order note and ship date saved to the order.
- My Account Preorders tab — customers can see and unsubscribe from their own sign-ups.
- Shortcode & blocks —
[asnp_wepo_notify_form]shortcode plus Notify Me and Preorder Message Gutenberg blocks to place output anywhere. - Built for modern WooCommerce — HPOS compatible, Cart & Checkout Blocks compatible, translation ready, GDPR export/erase, and clean uninstall.
🚀 Pro Features: Deposits, Widgets & Advanced Targeting
- Deposits & partial payments — let customers pay a deposit now (percentage or fixed) and record the remaining balance on the order, shown on the product page, cart, checkout, order and emails.
- Preorder pricing — apply a percentage or fixed discount to preorder products, and stop selling automatically at a chosen stock level.
- Early Bird Pricing — a two-card Launch Price vs Early Bird comparison under the Add to Cart button.
- Preorder widgets — a countdown timer to the ship date, an order progress bar / timeline (Purchased Production Shipping), and an info panel (Ships / Pay now / Limited run).
- Extra Back in Stock email layouts — Hero, Split and Minimal, alongside the free Centered layout.
- Category & tag targeting — target preorder and back in stock campaigns by product category or tag.
- Mixed-cart prevention — stop preorder and in-stock items being bought in the same cart.
- Order limits — cap the quantity of a product available for preorder.
- B2B / user-role rules — restrict preorder availability to specific customer roles (e.g. wholesale).
- Region / country targeting — allow preorders only for selected billing/shipping countries.
- Automatic product tagging — tag products by preorder / backorder / back-in-stock status for filtering and reporting.
- Analytics — preorder units, revenue and fulfilment status, daily demand trends up to 12 months, waitlist signups and notification rates, and top preorder and most-wanted products.
- Waitlist CSV export — download the filtered waitlist from the Waitlist admin screen.
Learn more about RestockBeacon Pro
How It Works
- No product editing required — configure everything with targeting campaigns (all products, or specific products) instead of editing products one by one.
- Background processing — restock detection is queued and processed with WooCommerce Action Scheduler, with a lock so a customer is not emailed twice for the same restock.
- Theme compatibility — the preorder button, message, cart note and Notify Me popup render through standard WooCommerce hooks and work on classic and block themes.
- Conditional asset loading — the frontend CSS and JS load only on shop, product, cart and checkout pages.
Where it shows up in your store:
- Product Page — preorder button + ship-date label, or the “Notify me” button and modal sign-up form.
- Cart & Checkout — preorder note on both the classic and Blocks cart/checkout.
- Emails — automatic Back in Stock and Preorder Confirmation emails.
- My Account — a Preorders tab for waitlist entries and preorders.
🔗 Follow Us
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💡 Our Other Pro Plugins
Screenshots
Blocks
This plugin provides 2 blocks.
- Notify Me (Back in Stock)
- Preorder Message
Installation
Automatic installation
- Go to Plugins Add New in your WordPress dashboard.
- Search for “Preorder Back in Stock for WooCommerce”.
- Click Install Now, then Activate.
Manual installation
- Upload the
restockbeacon-preorder-back-in-stock-for-woocommercefolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen in WordPress.
After activation
- Make sure WooCommerce 8.5 or newer is installed and active.
- Go to WooCommerce Preorder Campaigns and click Add to create your first campaign.
- Choose a type (Preorder or Back in Stock), set your targeting (all products, or specific products), button text, message and schedule, then Save.
- Adjust global options under WooCommerce Preorder Settings.
FAQ
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How do customers get notified when a product is back in stock?
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When a product is out of stock and matched by a Back in Stock campaign, the Add to Cart button is replaced with a “Notify me” button. Customers enter their email (with a consent checkbox) and join the product’s waitlist. As soon as you restock the product, the plugin automatically sends each waitlisted customer a back in stock email and marks them as notified.
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Can I sell products before they are released (preorder)?
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Yes. Create a Preorder campaign and the plugin keeps the Add to Cart button active on out-of-stock or upcoming products, relabels it (for example “Preorder — ships on {date}”), and adds a preorder note to the cart, checkout and order.
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Does it work with variable products?
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Yes. Preorder, backorder and back in stock / Notify Me all work with both simple and variable products, including per-variation waitlist sign-ups.
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Do customers need an account to sign up for the waitlist?
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No. Guests can join the back in stock waitlist with just their email address. Logged-in customers get their email prefilled automatically.
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Is it compatible with HPOS and the Cart & Checkout Blocks?
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Yes. The plugin declares compatibility with WooCommerce High-Performance Order Storage (HPOS) and works with both the classic shortcode cart/checkout and the new Cart & Checkout Blocks.
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What does this add on top of WooCommerce backorders?
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This plugin builds on WooCommerce backorders and adds a preorder experience (custom button text, ship date, under-button message and order flagging) plus a back in stock waitlist with automatic restock emails.
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Will the restock emails send twice or overload my server?
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No. Restock detection is queued through WooCommerce Action Scheduler and processed in the background in batches, with a locking mechanism that prevents duplicate sends even if you save a product multiple times.
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Can I customize the back in stock and preorder emails?
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Yes. Both are standard, themeable WooCommerce emails. Enable, disable and edit the subject/heading under WooCommerce Settings Emails, or copy the templates into
yourtheme/woocommerce/emails/to fully customize them. Each Back in Stock campaign can also choose a branded or plain WooCommerce template style and show the product image. -
Can I take a deposit or partial payment on preorders?
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Yes, in Pro. Preorder & Back in Stock Pro lets customers pay a deposit (percentage or fixed) at checkout while the remaining balance is recorded on the order for collection before fulfilment.
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Can I export the waitlist?
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The Waitlist admin screen lets you filter sign-ups by product and status. CSV export is provided by the Pro add-on.
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Is it translation ready and GDPR friendly?
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Yes. All strings are translation ready, the sign-up form includes a consent checkbox, and the plugin integrates with WordPress’s personal-data export and erase tools.
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Where can I place the Notify Me form?
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By default it appears on out-of-stock product pages. You can also place it anywhere with the
[asnp_wepo_notify_form]shortcode or the Notify Me block.
Reviews
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Contributors & Developers
“RestockBeacon Preorder & Back in Stock for WooCommerce” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
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Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.0
- Initial release: preorder, backorder, and back in stock “Notify Me” waitlist for WooCommerce.
- Automatic, batched back in stock email notifications on restock.
- Campaign-based targeting (all products, or specific products) with scheduling.
- Themeable Back in Stock and Preorder Confirmation emails.
- Waitlist admin screen with product and status filtering.
- HPOS and Cart & Checkout Blocks compatibility.