WooCommerce – How to Bulk Enable or Disable Backorders

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to bulk enable or disable WooCommerce backorders.

You’ll learn how to bulk enable backorders, how to bulk disable backorders, etc.

What are WooCommerce backorders?

Backorders are orders for products that are currently out of stock. When a customer places an order for a backordered product on your WooCommerce store, you agree to ship the product once it becomes available again.

We know it can be difficult to manage backorder stock settings for hundreds of products, especially if you want to enable or disable backorders for many products at once.

This tutorial will guide you to bulk edit backorders settings for hundreds of products at once.

We’ll do it using the WP Sheet Editor plugin, which allows you to view and manage WooCommerce products using a spreadsheet.

Install the WP Sheet Editor Plugin

You can skip this step if you already have the plugin installed and activated.

After installing the plugin, go to WP Sheet Editor > Edit Products to open the WooCommerce products spreadsheet.

You will see a spreadsheet that contains all your products with all their data.

1. Enable or disable WooCommerce backorders in the spreadsheet

If you only want to change the backorder status of some products, you can do it directly in the spreadsheet.

1. Locate the Stock status column and select the On Backorder option.
2. Move to the Manage stock column and tick the checkbox
3. Move to the Stock and enter 0.
4. Move to the Backorders allowed column and you can select any of these options:
   • Do no allow
   • Allow, but notify customer
   • Allow

You can apply this to as many products as you want, so this is the first way to bulk update the backorder settings for thousands of products.

Once you’re done applying the changes, click on the Save button.

2. Enable or disable WooCommerce backorders in bulk

If you want to enable or disable WooCommerce backorders in bulk, follow these steps:

First, filter all out-of-stock products (optional)

If you want to change all the out-of-stock products to the stock status on backorder, you can filter these products using the Search tool.

The Search tool will give you the option to filter by different parameters, but in this case, select these values:

• Tick the Enable the advanced filters checkbox
• Field: Stock status
• Operator: =
• Value: Out of stock
• Click on Run search.

Once filtered, all the out-of-stock products will be displayed in the spreadsheet.

Second, clear the stock

In case you’re not working with out-of-stock products, you’ll need to empty the stock to be able to handle your products on backorder.

Once you have decided the products that want to edit, open the Bulk Edit tool.

Then, you will need to change the product stocks to zero (0) by entering these values:

• Select the rows that you want to update: Edit the rows that I selected manually in the spreadsheet
• What field do you want to update: Stock
• Select type of edit: Clear value
• Click on Execute now.

This will clear the values in the Stock field.

Third, enable or disable WooCommerce backorders in bulk

Now we will see how to enable or disable the WooCommerce backorders in bulk.

Open the Bulk Edit tool.

Enter these values to enable or disable the backorders in bulk:

• Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search (Even non-visible rows).
• What field do you want to update: Backorders allowed?
• Select type of edit: Set value
• Replace existing value with this value: You can select any of these options:
  • Do not allow
  • Allow by notify the customer
  • Allow
• Click on Execute now.

Fourth, change the stock status to “On backorder”

Then select the products again and open the Bulk Edit tool to enter these values to change the stock status:

• Select the rows that you want to update: Edit the rows that I selected manually in the spreadsheet
• What field do you want to update: Stock status
• Select type of edit: Set value
• Replace existing value with this value: Select On backorder
• Click on Execute now.

Once these bulk edits are finished, you’ll see that all the products’ stock status is now On backorder.

Optional – Filter the “On backorder” products

If you want to edit other fields for all the products with the stock status on backorder, you can filter these products using the Search tool.

The Search tool will give you the option to filter by different parameters, but in this case, select these values:

• Enable the advanced filters
• Field: Stock status
• Operator: =
• Value: On backorder
• Click on Run search.

Once you run the search, all the products with the stock status “on backorder” will be displayed in the spreadsheet.

Optional – Prepend stock status on product titles

One strategy you can use to give visibility to your customers of the stock status of your products is to add them at the beginning of the title.

For this, you will need to open the Bulk Edit tool.

Once open, you can enter these values:

• Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search (Even non-visible rows).
• What field do you want to update: Title
• Select type of edit: Prepend
• Replace existing value with this value: Enter the column key $_stock_status$ or if you have previously filtered your “on backorder” products, you can simply write “On backorder”. In any case, be sure to add a blank space after this value.
• Click on Execute now.

Important: The stock status won’t be automatically changed in case you update it.

After the bulk update has been finished, you’ll see the stock status added to your product names.

Optional – Add a purchase note for all backorder products

One of the most difficult issues is properly explaining the lead time for backorders to customers.

If this is not done correctly, customers can become angry, resulting in negative reviews and refund requests.

To solve this, you can add a purchase note on all products with the stock status “on backorder” and thus inform your customers of an estimated delivery time or the process that will be followed upon receiving of the order.

This will be done using the Bulk Edit tool.

In the tool, select these values:

• Select the rows that you want to update: Edit all the rows from my current search (Even non-visible rows).
• What field do you want to update: Purchase note
• Select type of edit: Set value
• Replace existing value with this value: Add the note with a disclosure of the estimated time or procedure for the backorder
• Click on Execute now.

Once done, the purchase note will be added to all your backorder products.

Optional – Search for products ordered on backorder

Backorder management can make inventory management difficult.

Backordered items need to be tracked, which usually leads to an increase in administrative work because salespeople must monitor and manage these orders separately, which can be time-consuming.

However, in this section, you will find out how to filter out all products that are backordered using the Search tool.

Once in the Search tool, you’ll see different parameters to make your search, but in this case, you’ll enable the advanced filters and enter these parameters:

• Field: Stock
• Operator: Contains
• Value: Enter the – sign
• Click on Run search.

After running this search, you’ll see all the products that are requested to be delivered.

This is how WP Sheet Editor allows you to enable or disable WooCommerce backorders in bulk. You can save a lot of time and increase your productivity.