Can Gift Cards or Buy X Get Y Discounts Be Used with Preorders?

When using preorders, certain payment methods and discount types may not be supported due to limitations in Shopify’s purchase option (selling plan) system. Preorders allow customers to pay for products before they are available to ship, which changes how checkout and order processing work. Because of this, some Shopify features cannot be used together with preorder products.

Why Can’t Gift Cards Be Used for Preorder Purchases?

Gift cards cannot be used to purchase preorder products because Shopify places restrictions on how preorder payments are handled. Since preorder products are paid for before they are available to ship, Shopify does not support using gift cards as a payment method for these purchases.

Additionally, some accelerated checkout methods may also not work with preorders, including: Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Some local payment methods. These restrictions are in place to ensure the preorder payment flow works correctly.

Are Buy X Get Y Discounts Supported with Preorders?

No, Buy X Get Y discounts are not supported for preorder products. It is because preorders use Shopify's purchase option (selling plan) system, and this discount type is not compatible with selling plan products.

Possible Workaround

If you need to use features like gift cards or Buy X Get Y discounts, we do have a workaround.

Instead of using Shopify's selling plan (purchase option), you can switch to the line item property method.

You can enable this by going to STOQ → Preorders → Offers → Select the offer → Customize → Advanced, then disable 'Use Shopify’s purchase option' and enable 'Add custom cart attribute.'

Limitations of this workaround

Please note that this method comes with some limitations. When using the line item property method, the following features will not be available:

• Partial payments
• Offer-level discounts
• Fulfillment configurations set within the offer

Related Shopify articles - Preorder Requirement and Restrictions

Updated on: 25/03/2026