Can you set preorder limits per variant instead of per product?
Yes. Preorder limits in Timesact are per variant, which means a size 8 can be capped at 40 units while a size 14 is capped at 12, on the same product, in the same campaign. There is no product-level total that the variants divide up between them — each variant carries its own number.
For anyone selling apparel, footwear, or anything else with a size curve, this is the difference between a preorder that reflects your production plan and one that doesn’t. A cut of 200 units is never 200 units spread evenly across nine sizes. It’s a curve, it’s specific, and it’s usually been agreed with a factory before the campaign goes live. Your preorder caps should match that curve.
Where the limit lives
The limit sits on the variant, under Stock Management, and getting to it takes a specific path:
1. In Timesact, open Products and find the product. 2. The variants sit beneath the product. Select the variant you want to cap and click Edit. 3. Under Stock Management, turn Unlimited Inventory off. 4. Enter your number in Product Quantity. 5. Save, then move to the next variant and repeat.
Two details in that sequence do the real work. The first is turning Unlimited Inventory off: if it stays on, it wins, and the number you typed into Product Quantity isn’t enforced. A cap that appears to be set but isn’t holding is nearly always this.
The second is using the variant’s Edit view rather than typing the number straight into the row in the table. Editing inline doesn’t flip the variant to Active on its own — opening the variant, setting the quantity there, and saving is what flips that variant to Active in Timesact. That’s deliberate: activating a variant for preorder is a decision, so a number typed into a table doesn’t put a variant live and start selling before you meant it to.
If you’re setting the same cap across a run of sizes, you can select multiple variants and edit them together. Worth knowing what that does: the number you enter becomes the limit for each selected variant individually, not a pool they share. Select six sizes, enter 20, and you’ve created 120 units of preorder capacity — not 20.
Which stock rule your limit works with
Product Quantity is Timesact’s preorder limit, and whether it acts as an independent cap depends on which stock-management rule the variant is running:
| Stock-management rule | What caps the preorder |
|---|---|
| Preorder only when out of stock | Product Quantity — independent of Shopify inventory |
| Preorder regardless of stock levels | Product Quantity — independent of Shopify inventory |
| Preorder only when Shopify inventory is available | Your Shopify inventory count is the cap |
The first two let you hold a preorder allocation that has nothing to do with what Shopify currently shows. That’s the right fit when your Shopify inventory reflects physical stock on a shelf and your preorder allocation reflects a production run that hasn’t landed yet — two genuinely different numbers that shouldn’t be forced to agree.
The third works the other way: it treats your Shopify inventory as the allocation. Merchants who load an incoming production run into Shopify as the maximum they’re willing to sell often prefer this, because there’s then one number to maintain. The preorder button stays live until that quantity has been ordered, then the variant goes to sold out.
Pick the rule first, then set the limit. Choosing “regardless of stock levels” and expecting Shopify’s inventory number to cap it is the mismatch worth avoiding — on that rule, the cap you get is the one you enter in Product Quantity.
What happens when a variant hits its cap
The variant returns to its standard sold-out state. The preorder button comes off that variant, the rest of the campaign carries on untouched, and every other variant keeps selling against its own number.
That containment is the point. A size that sells through in the first hour closes itself while the rest of the curve keeps running, and you don’t have to watch a campaign to keep one size from overselling its allocation.
It’s worth being precise about what the limit is and isn’t. It’s a cutoff, not a trigger — reaching it doesn’t switch the product into another state, start a different campaign, or move anything to back-in-stock. The variant simply stops accepting preorders. Campaigns move between states through inventory or through dates; a unit cap closes a variant where it stands. If you want the campaign to close on a day rather than at a number, that’s the end date, which runs on UTC+0 (London time) and pairs perfectly well with a per-variant cap — whichever comes first, closes first.
Showing the allocation to customers
Your caps are inventory logic; what a shopper sees comes from your template. The preorder button label, the badge, the banner message, and the cart label are all configured in Settings → Templates in Timesact — and the template has to be assigned to the variants you’re running, or you’ll be editing copy that those variants aren’t using.
If you want the remaining allocation to be part of the pitch, the template accepts {{preorderQuantity}}, which renders the preorder units still available on that variant and counts down as orders land — “Only {{preorderQuantity}} left in this drop” reads as a live number to a shopper. It reads from the Product Quantity you set under Stock Management, so set that number and keep Unlimited Inventory off for the variable to have something to count against. A variable with no configured value renders the literal text variable_not_set on your storefront rather than falling back to anything sensible. Place the variable in a template too; it resolves there, not in Selling Plan fields.
Alongside the template, the Selling Plan is the purchase option that makes the variant preorderable and sets when the charge lands — in full at checkout, or an upfront amount at checkout with the balance on a Final payment date. The Selling Plan name is the copy your customer carries through the cart line, checkout, and their order confirmation, so name it in words a shopper would recognise.
Enable the Timesact App Embed on the theme you’re publishing — Online Store → Themes → Customize → App Embeds — and click Save in the theme editor. That template copy then renders on your product pages. Where each element lands on the page is worth a look if you’re deciding how prominent to make the remaining-units message.
Reconciling the campaign afterwards
Once the run closes, your allocation lives in Shopify Orders. Every Online Store order containing a preorder item carries the Pre-order tag, and an order mixing preorder and in-stock items carries both Pre-order and Partial Pre-order, so you can filter down to the campaign and count what each size actually did. Working from those tags is how you get a per-size committed count out at the end, which is the number your next production order wants.
If a variant’s quantity looks stuck at a figure you don’t recognise, that’s usually a limit set in an earlier campaign still sitting under Stock Management. Open the variant, adjust the number or switch Unlimited Inventory back on, and save.
Per-variant limits let your campaign carry the same shape as your buy. Choose the stock-management rule that matches how you’re using Shopify inventory, turn Unlimited Inventory off on the variants you want to cap, set each size’s number in its own Edit view, attach the Selling Plan that carries your charge timing, and let sizes close individually as they sell through. Then read the committed quantities back out of your order tags when the window shuts.
FAQs
How do I set a preorder limit for a single size or colour?
In Timesact, open Products, select the variant beneath the product, and click Edit. Under Stock Management, turn Unlimited Inventory off, enter your number in Product Quantity, and save. Repeat for each variant you want to cap.
Is the Timesact preorder limit the same as my Shopify inventory?
It depends on the stock-management rule. On “preorder only when out of stock” or “preorder regardless of stock levels”, Product Quantity is a separate cap. On “preorder only when Shopify inventory is available”, your Shopify inventory count is the cap.
Why isn't my preorder quantity limit being enforced?
Check whether Unlimited Inventory is still enabled on that variant. Unlimited Inventory takes precedence, so the number entered in Product Quantity isn’t applied until you turn it off and save.
What happens when a variant reaches its preorder limit?
That variant returns to its standard sold-out state and stops accepting preorders. Other variants on the same product continue selling against their own limits, and the campaign itself stays live.
If I select several variants and set one limit, do they share it?
No. The number you enter applies to each selected variant individually. Selecting six variants and entering 20 sets a limit of 20 on every one of them, for 120 units in total.