[Closed] When did "Pre-order" start cropping up?

'pre-delivery order'

ie. before the retailer actually gets the stock.

great way to get some money in on stuff with '30 days from shipment' supplier payment terms where there's a 4 week delivery time 🙂

i believe it began in the summer of 2007

ie. before the retailer actually gets the stock

a bit like buying from Wiggle

I think I remember pre-ordering Sgt Pepper back in '67 so it's nothing new.

It's pre-prepared vegetables that make me chuckle (in a tautological PIN number fashion) 8)

When online shopping started. Before that, you went into a shop and if the item wasn't on the shelf and couldn't be bought immediately, you could order it. Now thats redundant as on t'internet it's all ordering, by the correct definition.

So if they want to sell you something they don't even have in the warehouse yet so it can't be ordered, then that's a pre-order. Which is really a wait list.

It all makes sense to me....

'Pre-order' usually applies to incredibly mundain unimportant stuff that isn't at all time-critical but for some reason waiting until a retailer actually has the item in stock will result in the world ending horribly or a child dying. or something equally awful.

Some people use pre-order to make themselves appear more cleverer and bang-up-to-date than the rest of us weirdo's who are happy to just wait until something's sctually available in stock ...

Pre-order is what small boys pester their dad to do when the latest shoot em up on PS-Box is announced
For the retailer, this means getting £39.99 for a game that every supermarket in the country has for £23 come launch day 😡

I used to pre-order albums and stuff in HMV/ourprice/indpendent record shops 15-20 years ago.. nothing new is it?

I pre-ordered a Garmin 910xt. Their were only 100 in the first batch going to just one shop. I wanted one ASAP.

Yup same here remember pre-orderdering things at least 20 years ago, it's funny what you notice when you're looking for it.

I also pre ordered my DSP off loco so there was one for me when they arrived.. I thik the main point of doing it it to gauge interest..? poossibly?

Some people use pre-order to make themselves appear more cleverer and bang-up-to-date than the rest of us weirdo's who are happy to just wait until something's sctually available in stock ...

For some things you'll be waiting an awfully long time - I've bought things which are never in stock and the only way to get it is to pre-order.

Though OTOH...

I pre-ordered a Garmin 910xt. Their were only 100 in the first batch going to just one shop. I wanted one ASAP.

When did you get it then? See jota's point above? Remember the Royles 25% sale offer? 😀

...back to trying to write an Android app to download my 910XT

I pre-ordered a frame from Stif once. That means I ordered it, was given many 'it'll be here any day' updates, and three months later they finally owned up to not having ordered it yet.

ie. before the retailer actually gets the stock.

There are cash flow benefits, there are also benefits in terms of managing expectations and better predictions of volume, but there are also some clever marketing benefits by suggesting you are in an elite club and more cutting edge etc. Pre-order may only be available for a limited number or a limited period; so stock levels of components can be better managed.

Tis more of a 'pre-release order' than a 'pre-order order'. Hence it is assumed as an actual order, but taken before it can be fulfilled.

And yeah it suits the online order system best 🙂

To use the example of the recent batch of 853 prince alberts, dialled bikes needed to get people to pre-order the frames before placing the order with the frame builders in the far east. I guess for a small company like them it reduces risk and helps cash flow.

I pre-ordered a frame due in today. It didn't quite make it from the bonded warehouse. If I didn't have the patience of a special needs mayfly this really wouldn't be a problem 😉

To use the example of the recent batch of 853 prince alberts, dialled bikes needed to get people to pre-order the frames before placing the order with the frame builders in the far east. I guess for a small company like them it reduces risk and helps cash flow.

Thats where it comes in handy - if you are a producer of stuff, particularly shorter run stuff, you need to have your goods produced in one batch. That means you have to pay for all mittens / pogosticks / niche bike frames to be produced all at once then recoup the costs over the following year or two, hopefully breaking even and ultimately actually managing to pay yourself.

Pre-ordering helps reassure you that you can recoup a meaningful chunk of that outlay sooner rather than eventually, it also gets a meaningful amount of your stuff out there being seen, talked about and enjoyed, driving more sales so that you can move towards making a profit sooner too. Also - if no one pre-orders thats a fair signal to to pull the plug before you commit to production

I pre-ordered an album once, from an American singer-songwriter called Kris Delmhorst. The album hadn't even been recorded, let alone mastered. The money allowed Kris to take time off touring and it financed the whole CD recording and production process. A few artists do this, Marillion were one of the first to use the Internet to crowd-source funding from their fanbase. Pretty common, now.

Pre-order a frame from a small company eg dialled, singluar? Good: helps them get a 100-frame order in and keeps the wheels turning.

Pre-order latest xtr/wunder-coat shock/fork? Hmmmm, bit OTT IME. Still, I suppose it's not as bad as queueing outside the apple store at 7am on launch day. :lol:[edit] just noticed the ipad thread that presumably prompted flashy to start this one. 😆

Flashy up to date with latest communications tech: 😉
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Preordering started around the same time as opticians became optometrists and birds of prey became raptors.
It's marketing bollox!

I remember pre-ordering some mountain bike magazine a long time ago. I wonder what ever happened to that?

Preordering started around the same time as opticians became optometrists and birds of prey became raptors.
It's marketing bollox!

Oi! some of my best friends work for the Buzzard Marketing Board

Isn't preordering the same as reserving?

...when retailers realised that they could dupe people into commiting to buy a product that was deliberately stocked as to ensure there would be a shortage at full retail price. I used to work in the moble phone industry, it was common practice to restrict the availabilty of 'premium' handsets, it's called reatil price maintainence. But that still doesn't explain the utter stupidity of people who queue in the midnight rain to be the first to get their hands on the product that they've pre-ordered so many months ago...

Some people use pre-order to make themselves appear more cleverer and bang-up-to-date than the rest of us weirdo's who are happy to just wait until something's actually available in stock ..

You've gotta admire the really clever and bang up to date morons who queue up overnight outside shops for the latest game/gadget - by admire, I really mean laugh at.

Yeah - you're all making me feel really stupid for pre-ordering a mountain bike magazine.

About the same time as "pre-owned".

Has anyone ever been pre-owned with Bombers I wonder?