Preorder, Back In Stock ‑ STOQ

Hi there, I'm one of the app's founders. Truly sorry for the experience you had. Completely understand that you weren't happy and I'd love to add a bit of context on what happened. STOQ uses native Shopify technology end-to-end, and one of them is metafields - custom data stored directly in Shopify so that your storefront shows the preorder widget with no delay. When you change settings in STOQ's dashboard, we sync those changes with Shopify through metafields. In some cases, those updates don’t refresh as expected and older values can continue to show despite us explicitly asking Shopify to reset or update the data stored in metafields. This rarely happens, but it happened in your case a couple of times very likely due to incorrect caching logic for your store. Since we started talking about this issue with you, I've been working closely with my co-founder to improve how STOQ handles these edge cases. We’re already making changes to add extra safeguards - a custom built solution - to ensure that old, stuck values in metafields do not degrade the preorder widget's reliability for anyone. We genuinely care about our merchants and the trust they place in us. We're going to do everything we can to take this feedback seriously and make STOQ more reliable. Thanks for trying us out and for taking the time to share your experience. All the very best with your store and if you ever consider giving STOQ another chance in the future, I'd love to work with you personally to get you up and running. :) - Sandesh / CEO at STOQ

Hey there! I'm one of STOQ's founders - first, sincerely sorry that this happened. We actually do use Shopify's native preorder system - this is exactly why you ran into a platform limitation with collecting balance. It's a known bug in Shopify admin that collecting payments with "Collect payments" bulk action for Orders list does _not_ work for preorders. I raised this issue months ago when another store did the same thing you did, and had $100k+ in limbo. It required an escalation to Shopify's VP of Product to get everything corrected. They promised that it'd be fixed in future updates, but it seems like they haven't. I've escalated your issue to them again, in the hopes that they can fix it for you just like they did for the other store. More context here for anyone who's interested: https://x.com/heysandy801/status/1985528050658783552?s=20 I also want to take the moment to clarify a few things in your post - 1. If you used the app's actions or the single "Collect payment" button inside an order, everything would've worked fine. We actually have plenty of tools to help with payment collection (failed payment emails, collect in bulk, status tracking etc), but if an order is marked paid (which is what happened in your case), we simply cannot do anything without Shopify resetting the order's status. 2. It is correct that we cannot do anything beyond the deposit, but only if the order status is changed to "Paid". if the balance is marked collected in an unsupported way, there is nothing we can do to change it. 3. The only real solution is to contact Shopify. I've done that for you from my end too and I plan to follow up with them until you get your balance back. STOQ lives and dies on merchants selling preorders effectively and we work hard to make sure every brand is successful with their campaign - if there's one thing I care about, it is making sure that we do our absolute best. 4. When you use STOQ or any preorder app, all data related to your orders and payments stays in Shopify. There is nothing a third party has individual access to or controls exclusively - this is a good thing because it means Shopify can ultimately fix things if they step in. I've sent emails to you to follow up on this, and I'll continue working on getting your balance unstuck and resolved. I'd appreciate you replying to me so we can figure things out and get this resolved. :) I hope you can see from all our other reviews that we take our work seriously - and just like everyone else that's had a positive experience with us, I'm sure we'll turn this around for you. - Sandesh / CEO

Hi there! Sandesh here, one of the founders at STOQ. Thanks for using STOQ and sincerely sorry that we weren't able to live up to your expectations. I’d really love to understand what went wrong. Was something not working recently? Did a feature break, or was there something confusing or frustrating in your workflow? Whatever it was, I want to get to the bottom of it and fix it properly. If you’re open to talking, here’s my direct link to book a quick call with me: https://calendly.com/d/cpcd-ct4-qxq/restock-rocket-onboarding Even 10 minutes would help me understand what went wrong and make sure nobody, including you, has to face the same issue again. We’ve been building STOQ for 3 years now, and we're here - with an app and a business - only because merchants gave us a chance to give them this service. Feedback really matters to us. I’d be grateful for the chance to make this right, and hopefully earn back your trust. - Sandesh / CEO

Hi there! Anaam here, Merchant Success Lead at STOQ. I saw your review and I’m sincerely sorry that your experience felt patchy. I know how frustrating it must have been to run into issues and it really pains me to see that we didn’t deliver the experience we work so hard to provide. We’re constantly improving STOQ, fixing things as they come up, and doing our best to make everything seamless. However, it's clear that something didn’t work out for you, and I genuinely want to understand exactly what happened. Your experience matters a lot to us, and understanding what went wrong helps us fix it properly for you and for every other merchant. Can I please ask you to give us another chance? I’d love to personally take a look, understand the issues in detail, and ensure it’s resolved at the root, not just patched. If you’re open to it, feel free to book a call with me here - I’ll be more than happy to help: https://calendly.com/d/cpcd-ct4-qxq/restock-rocket-onboarding We care deeply about our merchants - it’s at the heart of everything we do and the reason STOQ exists. If there’s any way I can do right by you, please let me know. :) -- Anaam / Merchant Success Lead

Hi there! Sandesh here, one of the founders at STOQ. I saw that you uninstalled the app and left a negative review. Sincerely sorry about the issues you ran into. I know how frustrating it must have been. We're working tirelessly on fixing things up as they come, but there are some areas we can improve and you've ran into issues with some of them. Can I please ask you to give us another chance? I'll personally get you set up and make sure all issues are resolved properly from the root, not just patched. Feel free to book a call with me here, and I'll be happy to help -  https://calendly.com/d/cpcd-ct4-qxq/restock-rocket-onboarding It genuinely hurts to know you had a bad experience. We care a lot about our merchants - it’s at the heart of everything we do, and why we started STOQ. If there's any way I can do right by you, please let me know. :) - Sandesh, Founder of STOQ

Hi there! Anaam here, Merchant Success Lead at STOQ. I just read your review, and I’m truly sorry for what you experienced I completely understand how frustrating it must have been to see your custom site’s layout change. Based on what you described, you may have been setting up preorders. We do our best to make STOQ work on every theme right away. We also support custom themes, but a quick, one-time adjustment is often needed so our app can identify the correct page elements. When our app is removed, Shopify automatically removes our access, and STOQ doesn’t leave behind permanent code. But for the out-of-stock products that still show as available, this could be related to  Shopify’s “Continue selling when out of stock” option being enabled.  I've made a short video to show you the fix that recognizes the correct elements as well as how the continue selling option works - https://www.loom.com/share/008f120dc2464158a10397e18f3ac8bf This quick setting can be enabled/disabled easily and is required for preorders. You can check this setting by going to Products in your Shopify admin > select the product > Inventory > Disable 'Continue selling when out of stock'. Once disabled, the products should then show up as sold out again. We genuinely care about every merchant and work hard, 24 /7, to support everyone we work with - it’s at the heart of what we do. When someone uninstalls before we can help, it really does feel like we’ve failed at what matters most to us. Please don’t give up on us just yet. If you’re willing, I’d personally help you set everything up on a draft theme first so nothing affects your live site until it’s perfect. I'm happy to also get on a call with you and help you live. You can book a call with me here: https://calendly.com/d/cpcd-ct4-qxq/restock-rocket-onboarding Please give us one chance to make this right. Looking forward to hearing from you. -- Anaam / Merchant Success Lead

Hi there! I'm Sandesh, one of the app's founders. Thanks for writing a review and glad you liked our support. I'm sorry that the feature you're looking for is not available on all plans. When we build new features, we move them into different plan tiers based on the audience we think would use it the most. It seems like we got it wrong in your specific case and the feature you're looking for; I sent you an email through our chat tool to help you out. You mentioned looking for an alternative. We'll do our best to keep you on the app. We're spending all our time and energy on building literally the best app for preorders and back in stock alerts on Shopify, and I'm confident you won't find anything better than us combining price, value, support and feature set. But I also understand if price is the only thing that matters right now, and I'll help in any way I can to help you switch over. :) - Sandesh / CEO

Hey there! Sandesh here. I'm one of the app's founders. Before anything, I want to say sorry for the trouble and mess you had to go through. I totally understand that it's not ideal, and nothing we can do may fix it. However, if there's anything we can do, please let me know. I want to point out a couple of things if you don't mind - 1. We mentioned throughout the app that the beta is free from April 1 to June 30 and that plan limits will apply immediately after. During the beta, you were on the free plan. 2. The app sends usage emails at 80% and 100% usage about your plan limit. I can see that we sent the email notifications. We also have a 24-hour grace period before the app's preorder flows are disabled. 3. On the Free plan, we decided that it'd be better to let you continue earning sales than block them when you reach the plan limit. Unfortunately, it looks like we got the third part wrong. As such, we're rolling out an update today to block sales if the free plan's plan limit is exceeded. Once again, I'm truly sorry this happened. I've reached out to you on chat to share this message and to offer our help in any way we can to rectify this. Thanks for using Stoq. - Sandesh, CEO