“Where’s My Order?”: Five Best Practices to Avoid Pre-Order Chaos

Picture this: your team has just opened pre-orders for a new collection. The marketing buzz is working. Customers are lining up to secure their pieces early, sales are flowing in, and merchandising feels validated.

All seems well, but soon the emails start rolling in:

“Where is my order?”
“I need to edit my address.”
“I changed my mind, can I cancel?”
”My order also included matching socks, which were in stock. Why haven’t they shipped yet?”

Your excitement gives way to stress. Suddenly, multiple teams are being pulled into Slack threads about how to handle mixed carts, shipment delays, and frustrated customers. And your CX team is buried in repetitive admin: cancelling orders, copy-pasting shipping updates from an Excel file titled Shipping_Dates_Updated_Final_V3_FINAL, and drafting yet another apology email.

What felt like a winning strategy is quickly becoming a customer service nightmare — one that makes you question if pre-orders are even worth it.

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FIVE BEST PRACTICES TO MAKE THE PRE-ORDER PROCESS WORK

At Purple Dot, we hear versions of this story every day.  

And here’s the thing: your instincts are right! Pre-orders are a proven strategy to scale revenue and deliver more dynamic product experiences to your customers. The problem isn’t with pre-orders themselves, it’s with how most brands handle (or don’t handle!) the pre-order experience with their customers. 

If this predicament feels familiar, here are five best practices for making the pre-order process work — and how Purple Dot makes each one simple for you to achieve.

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1) OVERCOMMUNICATE SHIPPING TIMELINES

You might think you’ve set the right expectation by adding “Ships by Dec 20th” on your product page, but here’s the reality: customers often miss it, and even when they do understand, they rarely remember it weeks later. What they do notice is the charge on their card and the fact that nothing has arrived. That’s when the doubt creeps in… and that doubt inevitably turns into tickets. Whether it’s email, live chat, or a DM on Instagram, the question is always the same: “Where’s my order?” And for CX reps, that means hours of time (and, therefore, money) lost to responding.

Overcommunication is the key. As best practice, place your estimated ship dates everywhere.

That includes the PDP, the cart and mini-cart, the checkout, the confirmation page, and the confirmation email — ideally each specified by line-item, or grouped by the same ship dates. If it feels over-the-top and excessive, you're doing it right. Trust us!

Feels like a lot to keep up with? 

When you partner with Purple Dot, our integration makes it simple: you set the estimated ship dates once in your Purple Dot portal, and we automatically update it across every customer touchpoint. We overcommunicate, because the more clearly customers see the timeline, the less likely they are to ping you to ask about it!

Top Tip: Not sure how to set the right ship date to begin with? We’ve got you covered there too — check out this article packed with data and best practices!

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2) HAVE A PLAN FOR MANAGING CUSTOMER CHANGES

Pre-orders live in a longer timeline by default, which makes them uniquely vulnerable to all the changes that happen in customers’ lives. A customer who heads to college needs their address updated. Another wants to edit their payment method. Another wants to swap the Medium for a Small after completing their juice fast. On a small scale, these don’t sound like big issues. But multiplied across hundreds of pre-orders, they create a steady flood of “small” tickets that drain CX resources and erode your team’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to your customers. Before long, that frustration lands on your brand.

Purple Dot solves this issue for everyone by giving your customers access to a self-service portal where they can manage their orders directly. There, they can check on their order status, update payment and shipping details, or cancel a line item before it ships without ever contacting support. For CX, that means fewer tedious tickets and more time spent on meaningful interactions. For customers, it feels empowering, not frustrating. It’s the kind of simple change that transforms pre-orders from a source of stress into a driver of loyalty.

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3) OFFER CUSTOMERS MIXED-CART SHIPPING OPTIONS

Remember those Slack channels filling up and long "reply-all" email threads with frantic questions shortly after pre-orders go live? Mixed carts are often the culprit. 

Ops teams know the drill: a customer orders a hoodie on pre-order and sneakers that’s in stock today, but because most back-end systems only allow one shipment per order, the sneakers  get held until the hoodie is ready. Warehouses can’t split it, CX can’t explain it, and now customers feel like they’re being punished for buying more. 

The back-end is complicated, but the best practice is simple: give customers the choice upfront of how they want their mixed-cart items to ship. 

That’s exactly why we built a mixed-cart feature into Purple Dot, and why it’s one of our most popular benefits. Here’s how it works: In your portal, you set the rules that work best for your company. Want to charge shipping costs once, twice, or not at all? You always stay in control, and you have the freedom to adjust anytime. Whatever you decide, we’ll present those options seamlessly at checkout so customers can choose what works best for them. Now instead of scrambling, your teams can focus on growth, while customers get their orders shipped exactly the way they selected.

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4) ANTICIPATE HOW TO COMMUNICATE DELAYS 

You’ve executed your pre-order strategy flawlessly, but then reality hits: a supplier misses a deadline, production slows, or a shipment gets stuck at port. Suddenly, the thing you dreaded most has happened: your pre-orders are delayed.

After powering $100s of millions in pre-orders, here is what we’ve learned at Purple Dot: customers can handle waiting, but what they can’t handle is silence. Updating customers manually takes time, but leaving them in the dark opens the door to even more work down the line when the messages start to flood in: “Is my order still coming?” “Did you forget about me?” Either way, CX teams are left carrying the weight, once again.

With Purple Dot, we handle the proactive communication for you. The moment you edit a ship date in your portal, Purple Dot automatically notifies all of your customers with a polite, direct email. No manual work. No rushed apologies. You even have the flexibility to add a personalized discount code to show goodwill and keep your customers on your side. 

The result? Customers feel respected, informed, and confident that their order is still on the way. CX teams stay focused, not firefighting. And instead of frustration, you build trust that lasts long after delivery day.

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5) MEASURE THE PRE-ORDER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

We all know data is king (or queen!), but when it comes to pre-orders, most teams focus on measuring conversion rates and overlook collecting data on how the wait feels for customers. When brands are blind to how the pre-order journey feels for customers, CX reps are left absorbing complaints and eComm managers are left without data to drive improvements. Without that visibility, leaders may wrongly conclude that pre-orders “aren’t worth it,” cutting off a valuable growth channel because the customer experience feels unmanageable.

Purple Dot makes measuring customer satisfaction during the pre-order process easy. With our built-in survey tool, brands can collect post-purchase feedback specific to the pre-order experience. And we’re proud to report that results are consistently strong! Purple Dot customers report 9 out of 10 satisfaction scores when reflecting on their pre-order experience. That data is proof that when customers are supported well during the wait, they’re not just satisfied, they’re more loyal.

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YOUR PRE-ORDERS, WITHOUT THE PAIN

The bottom line: Pre-orders don’t have to be a drain on your teams or your systems. Follow these five best practices and turn pre-orders from a ticket driver into a trust builder. Want a true partner alongside you? Let Purple Dot do the heavy lifting behind the scenes so you and your team can focus on what really matters: building interesting products and lasting relationships with your customers. 

Ready to make pre-orders work for you, not against you? Book a demo with Purple Dot today!

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