What does BackOrder mean? BackOrder meaning and Definition

2 min readAug 1, 2022

Backorder has become a shining solution for many businesses in a world full of supply chain challenges. As beginners, a considerable number of eCommerce stores feel difficult to get started with BackOrder. Therefore, we are here today to give you trustworthy knowledge of backorder, including “what does backorder mean?”, their roles in inventory management, and the most effective approaches to backorder.

What Does BackOrder Mean? Others BackOrder-related Terms

What Does BackOrder Mean?

Items on backorder are considered as products that are unavailable at that time but scheduled to be refilled on a certain date. Backordering allows customers to place orders even though they are currently out of stock. The fulfillment process may take longer than normal, but the customers still receive the shipment on a scheduled date. To conduct backorder, the eCommerce store may need some tools, which we will discuss later.

BackOrder’s Roles In Supply Chain And Inventory Management

Backorder appears when the logistics process faces some problems, which is a bad signal for eCommerce businesses. However, backorder helps the stores avoid losses when they do not have enough products to sell, for example, during peak seasons, sudden trends, and other uncertainties. Moreover, when the logistics freeze like in the pandemic, blockchain helps your companies operate like normal as the customers still place orders, make payments, and then wait for the shipment later. Moreover, having backorder can alleviate the pressure on the warehouses, so the storage places do not need to handle too many stocks like normal.

When Your Business Needs BackOrder

Several times in a year, your businesses suddenly face high customer demand and serious shortages in stocks. They are when the eCommerce stores need more support from backorder. Normally, backorder can rescue your revenues from out-of-stock items in peak seasons when the customers have a strong tendency to buy a certain product line. Besides foreseen issues, eCommerce businesses may also encounter sudden sky-high demand due to temporary trends and natural disasters, so they need backorder tools to serve customers.

Effective Approaches With BackOrder

Planning for sufficient inventory and relieving the need for backorder, eCommerce businesses should try to forecast customer demand and then estimate levels of safety stocks to avoid shortages and keep the selling flow smooth. You can use the data from previous years or quarters to make suitable predictions. Several tools to record and report selling activities can be used for another demand forecasting. If you are using BigCommerce or Shopify platforms, Atom 8 is the one that can meet your expectation. Moreover, a powerful backorder tool will help your business no longer struggle with the backorder. If you are operating on BigCommerce, choosing BackOrder from GritGlobal is ideal.

Conclusion

We gave you all the guidelines for utilizing backorder, from “what backorder does” to how to use backorder effectively. We hope our sharing can help you feel easier to adopt backorder and find effective solutions to get through other supply chain challenges.