Backorders in X-Cart 5.6.x work with multi-location inventory and order routing, letting you accept purchases for out-of-stock items while shipping in-stock items sooner.
Customer experience
Backorders vs. Availability
When a product in your store supports backorders, it means that customers can purchase it even if the current stock level is not sufficient to cover the full order quantity.
On the product page of such a product, customers may see two availability messages, for example:
In stock (15 items available)
Available for backorder — 10 item(s)
Product page:
What this means:
There are 15 units of the product currently available for immediate shipment.
Customers can also order up to 10 additional units beyond the in-stock amount. These items will be delivered later, once they become available or are supplied from other stock sources.
In other words, if a customer adds up to 15 units to the shopping cart, all those items will be fulfilled from existing stock.
If the customer adds more than 15 units, the additional quantity (up to the backorder limit) will be placed on backorder.
How it looks in the shopping cart
In the shopping cart, X-Cart clearly shows how many of the selected products are in stock and how many are being ordered via backorder.
For example, in the screenshot below you can see a label saying "Backorder: 10 of 12".
Shopping cart:
What this means:
10 — the number of units to be supplied to the customer on backorder;
12 — the total number of units of the item in the current order.
This helps the buyer understand that part of the order will be shipped as soon as possible, while the rest will follow later.
What happens at checkout
When the order is placed, X-Cart verifies the actual stock availability across all warehouse locations and allocates the ordered quantities accordingly, based on the store’s order routing rules.
If some products must be sourced from warehouse distributors (WD), there’s an important detail to note: X-Cart does not receive real-time stock data from WD warehouses. Instead, it relies on the most recent product data import. Therefore, during checkout, the system performs an additional check to confirm whether the planned quantity can actually be supplied by the WD. If discrepancies are found, X-Cart automatically adjusts the order — updating how many units will be fulfilled by warehouse distributors and how many will go through backorder.
After the order is placed
In the order details, the initial order fulfillment status will be "Back-ordered":
Admin experience
Prerequisites
To start using backorders, you must ensure the Backorder add-on is enabled.
Enabling backorders
When the Backorder add-on is enabled, a dedicated Backorder location (warehouse) is automatically created in your store. The location name can be edited if needed.
The location address is initially copied from the store’s primary warehouse.
💡If you plan to use carrier shipping rates, make sure to edit the Backorder location address so that shipping costs are calculated correctly.
By default, shipping from the Backorder location is disabled.
To activate the Backorder functionality and allow products to be sold into negative stock, enable shipping for the Backorder location by setting the option Allow shipping from this location = ON. Be sure to click Save changes to apply your updates.
Understanding backorder limits
The Backorder location is added as a warehouse to the My Store stock for all products in your catalog.
On a product’s detail page (Product details → Prices & Inventory tab, Inventory section), you will see a row corresponding to the Backorder warehouse at the bottom of the expanded My Store warehouse list.
The Quantity field for the Backorder location indicates how many units of the product customers can purchase “into negative stock” through the Backorder functionality. By default, the Backorder location quantity is set to 0 for all products.
When the Backorder location quantity is 0 (Qty = 0), the product is not available for backorder. Backordering becomes available automatically when Qty > 0.
To offer a product on backorder, set the Backorder location’s Quantity field to the number of units you are willing to accept on backorder.
Backorder limits set for products can be conveniently viewed via the Inventory page (Catalog → Inventory). The limits are displayed in the Backorder column and are editable inline.
The product list on the Inventory page (Catalog → Inventory page) can be filtered for convenience.
Finding products by backorder status
When you need to find products with a specific backorder status, you can filter the product list on the Inventory page (Catalog → Inventory page) using the Backorder status filter.
The available filtering options are as follows:
Any status (default) — shows all products in the current selection.
Enabled — shows products with Backorder warehouse quantity > 0.
Disabled — shows products with Backorder warehouse quantity = 0.
Setting backorder limits
The product quantity available for backorder (Qty > 0) can be set for products individually per product or in bulk.
Per product - via the product detail page
To set a backorder limit for an individual product:
Find the product for which you need to set a backorder limit and open the product details.
Go to the Pricing & Inventory tab.
Scroll down to the Inventory section.
If necessary, expand the "My Store" row in the stocks table. It will allow you to see the product's quantity by warehouse.
Set the product’s Backorder warehouse quantity to a value greater than zero.
Click Update to save the changes.
Per product - via the Inventory page
You can conveniently review and edit product backorder limits on the Inventory page (Catalog → Inventory). Backorder limits are displayed in the Backorder column and are editable inline.
In bulk - via the Inventory page
You can bulk-assign a backorder limit to multiple products at once.
Navigate to the Inventory page (Catalog → Inventory).
Select the products for which you want to set a backorder limit, then click Bulk edit on the sticky panel and choose Backorder.
The Bulk edit → Backorder page opens.
On this page, you’ll see the Backorder quantity setting with a Click to specify button, and below it a table listing the selected products (showing Product name and Backorder quantity for each item).
Click Click to specify.
The button is replaced with an editable field; use it to enter the desired quantity.
Click Save changes.
Admin notifications
When an order includes a backordered item, the store admin receives a Backordered item in the orders email notification. You can configure this type of notifications under Settings → Email Notifications.
Backorders vs. Order routing
When determining which stock source and location will be used to fulfill each item in a customer’s order, the Backordered items last of all rule applies.
This rule ensures that products from the Backorder location are always allocated last: first, the system sources items from all other available warehouses, and only if their combined stock is still insufficient to fulfill the order does it use the Backorder location to cover the remaining quantity.
Backorders vs. Split shipments
During checkout, any cart items whose quantities exceed available stock at primary locations are automatically placed into a separate BACKORDER shipment.
Processing orders with backordered Items
Orders containing backordered items are automatically assigned the Fulfillment status "Back-order".
You can see this status in the Fulfillment status column on the Orders page.
This makes it easy to spot orders that require additional attention — for example, when certain items need to be fulfilled later, once they are back in stock or sourced from another supplier.
To check which specific products in an order are backordered:
Open the order in the Admin area.
In the General info section, review the product list.
For each product ordered via backorder, you will see a note indicating how many units were allocated through backorder.
For example:
Backorder: 10 of 25
This means that out of 25 units ordered, 15 were available at the time of purchase and need to be shipped from one or more in-stock locations, while the remaining 10 were allocated through backorder and need to be delivered once they become available.
By switching to the Shipments tab of an order that contains backordered items, you can view the shipments that were automatically created for this order at the time of its placement.
Note that the products scheduled for delivery via backorder are grouped into a separate shipment labeled BACKORDER.
This shipment serves an internal, informational purpose only and cannot be shipped to the customer as is.
To fulfill the order:
Wait for the backordered products to become available at warehouse distributors (WD) or restock them at your own warehouse.
Remove the BACKORDER shipment unassigning items from it.
Create new shipments based on the updated product availability across warehouses.
Ship the newly created shipments to the customer.
How to remove the BACKORDER shipment and unassign items from it:
In the list of order shipments, locate the BACKORDER shipment and click the Remove shipment & unassign items button next to its name.
A popup titled "Remove shipment & unassign items" appears.
In the popup, specify how you want to handle the items being unassigned from the shipment:
Adjust the setting Return the items from this shipment to their original stock as you require and click Confirm.
The available options are:
On = Items will be removed from the order and added to the current stock level at your store's Backorder location.
Off = Items will be removed from the order and not added anywhere.
Clicking Confirm deletes the shipment and returns its items to the order for reassignment; you will be able to find those items in the "Products Not in Shipments" section.
For example, in this screenshot you can see 10 units of SKU MMM5887 unassigned from the BACKORDER shipment and not assigned to any other existing shipments.
Select the items you want to include in a new shipment by selecting the boxes before their names and specify the quantity you want to include as needed.
For example, after checking the product details of SKU MMM5887, we can see that since the order was placed, the local warehouse has been restocked and now has 5 units of this product available.
Although this quantity is still not enough to fully fulfill the order (which includes 10 units marked as backordered), we do not have to wait until all 10 units are in stock — we can ship the 5 available units now and send the remaining ones later.
To do this, we should go to the "Products Not in Shipments" section, select the product SKU MMM5887 for inclusion in a shipment by checking the box in front of its name, and enter 5 in the Quantity field.
Click Create new shipment. As a result, a new shipment will be created containing the products you selected in the previous step, in the specified quantity.
In our example, the newly created shipment will include 5 units of product SKU MMM5887, while the remaining 5 units will still appear in the "Products Not in Shipments" section.
To complete the order fulfillment, you will need to wait until these remaining units are back in stock and then create one or more additional shipments to send them to the customer.
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