Pre-orders and future payments

Setting up a new site with pre-orders.

We are thinking of collecting credit card info now and then charge at a future date when the item has been manufactured and is ready to ship. Most credit card authorizations only do a temporary hold. Plus you have to go back and trigger the charge when item is ready.

Assuming need to set up a future payments token. Is this possible with PayPal or Stripe using the Squarespace cart? Do you need to send people to Stripe checkout?

Or, do most people just charge for pre-orders at time the pre-order is placed and then ship at a later date?

Thanks!

I don't t think this is possible using the Squarespace subscription. Cards are charged right away, so if you are shipping at a later date, you'll need to make it clear to customers that when they pay now, their card is charged but you will ship by XX date.

For accepting pre-orders, I went with a third-party service like MoonClerk (they also do subscriptions). I signed up for a MoonClerk account just last week to accept pre-orders. I make it clear to customers that they are paying now but I don't ship the products until first week of November since the products are still in production. I went with MoonClerk because I didn't want the products to go through the regular Squarespace checkout and have customers use coupons (when my pre-order price is already discounted). I like the simple and straightforward interface of MoonClerk and I plan on using it when I re-launch my subscription service.

15 hours ago, KLR said:

We are thinking of collecting credit card info now and then charge at a future date when the item has been manufactured and is ready to ship.

As @sruss76 suggested above, this isn't possible using Squarespace Commerce.

When processing orders through the Squarespace Checkout, full payment is taken immediately. It is not possible to authorise a payment without taking the funds immediately.

You could use a different payment method for pre-orders by integrating another solution like Shopify Buy Buttons, but bear in mind two things:

• These purchases will be processed on a completely different platform. The customer will be able to click a button on your Squarespace site to pre-order but you will not see their order in the Squarespace Orders panel and you will need to process their order, including shipping on the other platform.
• Authorisation periods for online transactions are usually very short. If you do not take payment within a certain period of time, for example seven days, the authorisation may expire and you may no longer legally take payment for that order.

I hope this helps.

-Paul

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