Preorders and backorders

In the case of a preorder or backorder, an order may already be placed even though no stock is available (yet). Whether it is permitted to order a product even when stock is unavailable can be configured in the listing. If an order is accepted for which no stock is available, it's placed in a waiting room.

To allow listings to be available for preorder or backorder, the complete stock fence must be set to active. This can be done in the Backoffice by going to the Network view, clicking on Inventory, hovering on the Basic configuration and clicking the edit icon, selecting Routing rules, activating the Complete stock toggle, and saving the changes.

If you do this in Backoffice, you'll still need to set the activeMode of the fence to reactive via the routing strategy endpoint, as this currently isn't available in Backoffice.

Alternatively, this can be done using the API.

PUT https://{YOUR-TENANT-NAME}.api.fulfillmenttools.com/api/routing/strategies/{strategyId}

{
...
      "fences": [
        {
          "active": true,
          "activeMode": "reactive",
          "implementation": "STOCK-AVAILABILITY",
          "type": "StandardFence"
        }
      ],
...     
}

See the Routing strategy article for a full request example.

If shouldUseWaitingRoomForPreBackOrderItems is set to true in the order split configuration of the routing strategy, the items will still be moved to the waiting room even if the complete stock fence is inactive.

Preorder

A preorder is an order for a product placed before it becomes available in inventory or is officially released by the supplier. This means that the consumer is essentially reserving the product, and the seller ships it as soon as it becomes available.

Preordering allows customers to secure their place in line and be among the first to receive the product when it becomes available.

To define an item as available for preorder, set outOfStockBehaviour to PREORDER, and include the outOfStockConfig on the listing. This is needed to set the time that the item will be available from.

PATCH https://{YOUR-TENANT-NAME}.api.fulfillmenttools.com/api/facilities/{facilityId}/listings/{tenantArticleId}

{
    "actions": [
        {
            "action": "ModifyListing",
            "outOfStockBehaviour": "PREORDER",
            "outOfStockConfig": {
                "preorder": {
                    "availabilityTimeframe": {
                        "start": "2025-12-01T08:45:50.525Z"
                    }
                }
            }          
        }
    ],
    "version": 2
}

Backorder

A backorder occurs when a customer places an order for a product that is currently out of stock or unavailable for immediate shipment. This means that the customer's order is temporarily on hold until the product becomes available again.

Backorders can occur for various reasons, such as unexpected demand, supply chain delays, or manufacturing issues.

To define that an item is available to backorder, set outOfStockBehaviour to BACKORDER on the listing.

PATCH https://{YOUR-TENANT-NAME}.api.fulfillmenttools.com/api/facilities/{facilityId}/listings/{tenantArticleId}

Waiting orders

If an order is created and there is no stock available for a requested item that is marked as preorderable or backorderable, fulfillmenttools doesn't try to assign it to a facility. Instead, it puts the order into a waiting room.

When stock for the requested product becomes available again, fulfillmenttools automatically attempts to assign all waiting orders to a facility. If there's not enough stock available for all waiting orders, those orders become unroutable again. Currently, there is no prioritization rule in place.

A user can also intervene manually in certain scenarios while the order (or order split) is in the waiting room.

Assign a new facility for fulfillment: Assign an order to a specific facility by ignoring any configured fences. One scenario is to route a same-day order to a given facility, change it to a standard delivery order (see Carrier change), and fulfill it. It's possible to assign either the partial or the full order.
Trigger a new routing decision: Rerun the routing process to reevaluate whether a facility now exists that can fulfill the order. This might come in handy once a misconfigured routing strategy is corrected, and all orders should be processed as usual.
Canceling an order: Cancels all corresponding pick jobs of an order. It's possible to cancel the partial order or the whole order.

Order split with preorderable and backorderable items

An order split is possible when items are marked as preorderable or backorderable, depending on the situation. Let's look at some scenarios:

If an order split is allowed and some of the preorderable or backorderable items aren't available, the missing items are split and placed in the waiting room. It's handled as a separate order.
If an order split is allowed and some items aren't available but aren't set as preorderable or backorderable, the missing items aren't picked, and the order will be a short-pick.
If an order split is allowed and some of the preorderable or backorderable items aren't available, but they're part of an item bundle, the order can't be split, as all items are treated as one. This means that all items in the bundle will go to the waiting room as part of the preorder or backorder.

Last updated 2 days ago