Availability Date, Pre-order and Backorder in Google Merchant Center

A product you haven’t received yet, or have run out of, can still be listed on Google. There are two values for it, they are not interchangeable, and both of them oblige you to publish a date. Get the date wrong and the product is disapproved; promise stock you can’t ship and the rule that applies is an account-level one.

The five values, and which two need a date

Availability isn’t optional. Google says it is Required for all products. and that The values in your data source should always match the information on your website. (Google’s availability attribute page).

Two of the values describe a product you can’t ship today:

• Preorder. You’re accepting orders for this product, but it’s not been released for sale.
• Backorder. The product isn't available at the moment, but you’re accepting orders and it will be shipped when it's available again.

And Google draws the line between them for you: The preorder [preorder] value should only be used for new products that haven’t been released yet. Existing products that are out of stock and will be back in stock at a later date that you’re accepting orders for should use backorder [backorder] .

In plain English: preorder is for something that has never been on sale. A restock is a backorder, however long the wait. Using preorder for a restock is the most common mistake here, because “pre-order” is the word most store themes print on the button.

For backorder there is one more condition, on a different Google page: it is for products that can still be purchased and dispatched within a reasonable time frame (Google’s page on availability mismatches). Google gives no number for “reasonable”, so there is nothing to quote at you, but an indefinite wait is not a backorder, and marking it as one puts you in the territory of the next-but-one section.

What the availability date attribute has to contain

Google requires it for both values. Its availability date page says it is Required if you set the availability [availability] attribute to preorder or backorder .

The rules on the value itself:

• Format: Google asks for a date, a time and a time zone in the ISO 8601 style, written as YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm[±hhmm] or YYYY-MM-DDThh:mmZ. So 2027-02-14T09:00+0000, not 14/02/2027.
• Time is optional, and has a default. If you don't, the default time is 12 AM, midnight, in the UTC timezone.
• No further than a year out: Google recommends adding an estimated date (up to 1 year in the future) and updating it once the real shipping date is known.
• One date, not a window. Google says Don't include date ranges. “March–April 2027” is not a value.
• In structured data the equivalent property is availabilityStarts on the Offer.

A note on Google’s own pages disagreeing, because it causes arguments. The attribute’s own page requires the date for preorder or backorder. The product data specification says in one place that you should Provide the availability date [availability_date] attribute if you submit preorder [preorder] or backorder [backorder] as the availability value., and in its attribute table lists it as Required if product availability is set to preorder, without mentioning backorder. Our reading: send it for both. The attribute’s own page is the more specific one, and sending a date you have is never the thing that breaks a listing.

What your product page must show

This is the part most stores miss, because it is a rule about the page rather than the feed. Google says: For “preorder” or “backorder” items, the page must display the expected shipping date.

Not “in stock soon”. Not “ships when available”. A date, visible to a shopper who hasn’t added anything to the cart. That date and the delivery time Merchant Center works out are separate things, and both get compared with your pages. Our post on how Google calculates your delivery time covers the second one.

And four places have to agree. Google’s wording: Show a consistent availability across the landing page, structured data (if available), checkout page, and your data source . Then the consequence: A mismatch in one of these will trigger a product disapproval.

So a pre-order product needs, all saying the same thing:

1. The page: a pre-order or backorder label, and the expected shipping date in text.
2. The structured data: availability set to PreOrder or BackOrder, with availabilityStarts.
3. The checkout: it must let the order through, and not say “in stock”.
4. The feed or integration: availability and availability_date.

Google is also explicit that you shouldn’t fudge the first one: Don’t list a product as in_stock on your landing page or in your product data if it hasn’t been released yet and is only available for preorder.

When a date becomes a policy problem

A pre-order with a real date is fine. A pre-order you can’t fulfil is a different matter, and it sits in Google’s Misrepresentation policy under unavailable offers: Listing items as available when you lack the capability to fulfill the orders.

That section comes with notice. Google says A warning will be issued at least 7 days prior to any suspension of your account. But it is an account-level rule, not a product-level one. A catalogue of indefinite pre-orders is the case it describes.

Our post on fixing a Misrepresentation suspension covers that policy end to end.

When the date passes

Nothing happens automatically. The date is a statement, not a timer: it does not flip the product to in stock, and it does not remove it. Two things to do on the day:

1. Change the availability to in stock (or out of stock) in your store and in whatever sends data to Google, and take the pre-order wording off the page.
2. Move the date if it has slipped, rather than leaving yesterday’s date on the page. Google asks you to update the value as soon as the real date is confirmed, and a date in the past on a product still taking orders is exactly the gap between page and promise its policies are about.

Also worth knowing: Google advises against deleting a product to pause it. Its availability page says that adding an offer back after deletion will take a significant amount of time before it can show again, and suggests marking it out of stock instead. Our post on products that keep showing after you deleted them covers the other half of that problem.

Where to set it on each platform

• Shopify. Shopify has no availability-date field. “Continue selling when out of stock” makes the product buyable, and most integrations then send it as in stock or backorder, not preorder with a date, so the date usually has to go on the page as text and into Merchant Center through a supplemental data source. Check what your integration actually sends before assuming.
• WooCommerce. The core “On backorder” stock status maps to backorder. The expected date is not a core field, so it goes on the product page as text and into your feed through the plugin’s own field or a supplemental source.
• BigCommerce, Wix, Squarespace and others. Look for a pre-order setting with a release date; where there isn’t one, put the date in the product description and submit availability_date through a feed file or a supplemental data source in Merchant Center.

On every platform, Merchant Center’s supplemental data sources are the fallback for an attribute your store can’t send.

Where ShieldKit fits

Our free store check reads your product pages and reports whether they carry Product structured data, and which required fields it is missing, stock status among them, so a page that says nothing about availability shows up. It also compares the price the page shows with the price in its own markup.

What it doesn’t do: it doesn’t read the availability date attribute in your feed, it doesn’t compare the availability value with your checkout, and it won’t tell you whether a date is realistic. Those are yours to line up.

If Merchant Center is already showing the mismatch, our guide to an availability mismatch is the step-by-step fix.

FAQ

Preorder or backorder?

Preorder is only for products that have never been released. A product you have sold before, have run out of, and are still taking orders for is a backorder. Google states both definitions and the dividing line on its availability attribute page.

Is the availability date required?

Google requires it for preorder and for backorder on the attribute’s own page. The product data specification’s attribute table names only preorder, so Google’s pages differ. Sending it for both is the safe reading.

What format does availability_date take?

ISO 8601: YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm[±hhmm] or YYYY-MM-DDThh:mmZ. If you leave the time out, Google treats it as midnight UTC. Google also says not to submit date ranges, and recommends a date no more than a year ahead.

Does my product page have to show the date?

Yes. Google says that for preorder or backorder items the page must display the expected shipping date, and that availability must be consistent across the landing page, the structured data, the checkout and your data source, and a mismatch in any one of them disapproves the product.

Can a pre-order get my account suspended?

The pre-order itself, no. Listing products you can’t actually supply is covered by Misrepresentation, under unavailable offers, which Google enforces at account level after a warning of at least 7 days.