Google Shopping preorder and backorder: availability_date explained
How to sell preorder products on Google Shopping, the preorder and backorder availability values, the availability_date attribute, formats, and staying compliant.
Google lets you advertise products before they ship, preorder for items not yet released, backorder for items sold out but still orderable. Both require the availability_date attribute so shoppers know when the product will actually dispatch. The date must be within a year, in ISO format, and match what your landing page promises.
The attributes for not-yet-shipping products
| Attribute | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
availability |
Set to preorder or backorder |
preorder |
availability_date |
When the product will ship / be available | 2026-09-01T08:00+01:00 |
availability has four accepted values: in_stock, out_of_stock, preorder and backorder (covered alongside pricing in price, availability and sale_price). The two "orderable but not shipping yet" values are the ones with extra rules, because they let you advertise something a shopper can't receive today: and Google wants that gap made explicit.
preorder vs backorder: which one you need
preorder: the product has not been released yet. Shoppers pay (or commit) now and receive it at launch. Game releases, new phone models, limited drops.backorder: the product is normally available but stock has run out, and you're still taking orders for the next batch. Restocks, made-to-order runs, supplier delays.
The distinction is release status, not stock level. Both behave the same way in the feed: the offer stays live and buyable, and availability_date tells Google (and the shopper) when it will actually dispatch.
Don't use out_of_stock for either case if you're still taking orders: that removes the product from serving entirely, which is throwing away exactly the demand a preorder is designed to capture. Equally, don't leave a sold-out product as in_stock because "orders still go through": if the page says shipping in 6 weeks, that's a backorder, and calling it in-stock is a mismatch.
availability_date: format and rules
- Required whenever availability is
preorderorbackorder. - ISO 8601 format:
YYYY-MM-DDor full timestamp with timezone, e.g.2026-09-01T08:00+01:00. - Must be in the future and no more than 1 year from now. Products further out than a year can't be listed as preorders yet.
- Should match the expected availability shown on your landing page: the crawler checks the page just as it does for price and availability.
The landing page carries obligations too: shoppers must be able to place the order now (a "notify me" email form is not a preorder: that's just an out-of-stock page), the expected date or window should be stated, and the price charged must be the feed price.
Deep dive Running preorders compliantly at catalogue scale
Preorder offers fail in slow motion, not at submission. The offer validates fine on day one: the problems accumulate as the date approaches and passes:
- The stale-date drift. Launch slips two weeks, the site updates its banner, nobody updates the feed. Now feed and page disagree on the date: a mismatch signal. The
availability_dateneeds to be sourced from the same system that drives the landing-page date, not typed once at listing time. - The launch-day flip. When the product ships, the feed must flip
preorder→in_stockand drop the date. If your feed fetches daily and launches at 9am, there's a window where ads say preorder against a page selling in-stock. For high-volume launches, schedule the feed update to land with the site change, or fetch more frequently around launch. - The expired preorder. The date passes, the product still hasn't shipped, and the feed keeps a past date. Google treats a past
availability_dateon a live preorder as invalid data. Push the date back (within the one-year limit) the moment a delay is confirmed. - Charging expectations. Whatever your checkout does (charge now, charge at dispatch) the landing page must say so clearly. Vague fulfilment promises on prepaid orders are a misrepresentation vector, and preorder categories attract more policy scrutiny than in-stock goods precisely because the shopper pays before anything exists to ship.
The pattern behind all four: availability_date is a live attribute, like price: it needs a data pipeline, not a one-off entry. Continuous monitoring that diffs the feed against the landing page catches date drift before Diagnostics does.
Quick reference: the four availability states
| Value | Buyable now? | Ships now? | availability_date? |
|---|---|---|---|
in_stock |
Yes | Yes | No |
out_of_stock |
No | No | No |
preorder |
Yes | At release | Required |
backorder |
Yes | At restock | Required |
How this works in /tools
Validation catches the mechanical failures (preorder or backorder offers missing availability_date, dates in the past or beyond the one-year limit, malformed date strings) before Google sees them, with corrections written to the supplemental layer rather than your store data. Change monitoring flags when a preorder's date lapses without the availability flipping to in_stock, which is the drift that otherwise sits unnoticed until impressions drop. These checks feed your Feed Health Score, and if a preorder range is already disapproved, start with fixing disapproved products.
Frequently asked questions
Can you sell preorder products on Google Shopping?
Yes. Set availability to preorder, add availability_date with the date the product ships or becomes available, and make sure the landing page lets shoppers place the order now and shows the same expected date. The date must be within one year.
What is the difference between preorder and backorder?
preorder is for products that have never been released, shoppers order ahead of launch. backorder is for products that normally ship immediately but are temporarily out of stock while still accepting orders. Both need availability_date; the difference is purely whether the product has been released before.
What format does availability_date use?
ISO 8601, either a date like 2026-09-01 or a full timestamp with timezone like 2026-09-01T08:00+01:00. It must be in the future and no more than a year away.
What happens when the availability_date passes?
Nothing automatic, Google doesn't flip the offer to in_stock for you. Your feed must update availability to in_stock (or push the date back) when the product ships. A past availability_date on a preorder offer is a data error that triggers warnings and, left long enough, disapprovals.