Essential Preorder & Presale and WOD: PreOrder Now are both Shopify apps designed to enable pre-orders and back-in-stock notifications, but they cater to slightly different merchant needs. Essential Preorder & Presale focuses on providing a highly customizable and flexible solution for managing pre-orders, backorders, and presales, with an emphasis on payment flexibility through partial payment options and split payment schedules. This makes it suitable for businesses with complex pre-order workflows, including DTC and B2B scenarios. WOD: PreOrder Now, on the other hand, emphasizes speed and ease of use, with features like bulk preorder management and scheduling. It positions itself as a solution for quickly enabling pre-orders to capture revenue on out-of-stock items, particularly during peak seasons. While offering customization options, its core strength lies in its streamlined approach and focus on essential features like mixed cart alerts and inventory limits, making it a potentially better fit for merchants seeking a simpler, more direct pre-order solution. While WOD: PreOrder Now has significantly more reviews, indicating broader adoption, Essential Preorder & Presale boasts a higher average rating, suggesting potentially greater customer satisfaction with its feature set and performance.
466 reviews
1,024 reviews
Run pre-orders, presale with partial payments. Capture out-of-stock demand with back in stock alerts
Enable preorders fast. Keep selling out of stock items and capture revenue early with pre order now.
| Rating | 4.9/5 | 4.5/5 |
Rating Essential Preorder & Presale4.9/5 WOD: PreOrder Now4.5/5 | ||
| Reviews | 466 | 1024 |
Reviews Essential Preorder & Presale466 WOD: PreOrder Now1024 | ||
| Key Feature: Payment Options | Partial payments, deposits, split payment schedules | Full payment only |
Key Feature: Payment Options Essential Preorder & PresalePartial payments, deposits, split payment schedules WOD: PreOrder NowFull payment only | ||
| Key Feature: Customization | Highly customizable Preorder Now button, Notify me widgets, restock alert email | Customizable buttons, badges, and confirmation emails |
Key Feature: Customization Essential Preorder & PresaleHighly customizable Preorder Now button, Notify me widgets, restock alert email WOD: PreOrder NowCustomizable buttons, badges, and confirmation emails | ||
| Key Feature: Bulk Management | Supported | Bulk Preorder Management: Apply settings to multiple variants, products, or tags |
Key Feature: Bulk Management Essential Preorder & PresaleSupported WOD: PreOrder NowBulk Preorder Management: Apply settings to multiple variants, products, or tags | ||
| Key Feature: Back in Stock Alerts | Yes, with automated email notifications | Implicitly supported, through enabling preorders when out of stock |
Key Feature: Back in Stock Alerts Essential Preorder & PresaleYes, with automated email notifications WOD: PreOrder NowImplicitly supported, through enabling preorders when out of stock | ||
| Target Merchant | DTC & B2B, complex pre-order flows | Merchants seeking easy, fast pre-order setup |
Target Merchant Essential Preorder & PresaleDTC & B2B, complex pre-order flows WOD: PreOrder NowMerchants seeking easy, fast pre-order setup | ||
| Value Proposition | Flexible payment options, deep customization, broad use cases | Speed, simplicity, essential features |
Value Proposition Essential Preorder & PresaleFlexible payment options, deep customization, broad use cases WOD: PreOrder NowSpeed, simplicity, essential features | ||
For merchants requiring granular control over their pre-order process, including flexible payment options like partial payments and split payment schedules, and who need extensive customization to align with their brand, Essential Preorder & Presale is the stronger choice. The higher rating suggests greater satisfaction with these more advanced features. It's also well suited to both DTC and B2B use cases.
However, for merchants who prioritize ease of use and a quick setup, especially those looking to immediately capture revenue on out-of-stock items without complex payment workflows, WOD: PreOrder Now is a better fit. The larger number of reviews suggests that a wider audience has found it suitable for achieving this goal. Its focus on bulk management and scheduling simplifies the pre-order process.
Essential Preorder & Presale offers more flexible payment options, including partial payments, deposits, and split payment schedules. WOD: PreOrder Now appears to focus on full payment pre-orders.
WOD: PreOrder Now provides bulk preorder management, which may simplify the process of enabling pre-orders across multiple variants, products, or tags. Essential Preorder & Presale supports bulk management too, but its focus on customization might increase setup time.
Essential Preorder & Presale explicitly mentions support for B2B pre-orders and its partial payment features are very relevant to the B2B market.
Yes, WOD: PreOrder Now specifically features Mixed Cart Alerts to warn customers about the presence of both types of items. Essential Preorder & Presale doesn't explicitly list this, so might not have this feature.
Essential Preorder & Presale highlights sending automated 'back in stock' email notifications when items are restocked, while WOD implicitly offers this functionality through enabling preorders when items are out of stock, the email notification feature may not be its strongest point.
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