Your manufacturer will not start production until you order 300 units. You have a waitlist of maybe 40 people and no idea whether the other 260 buyers exist. Ordering the full run means fronting thousands of dollars on a guess. This is the minimum order quantity problem, and it is the reason a lot of good products never get made.
An all-or-nothing campaign is an MOQ campaign
There is no dedicated MOQ pre-order category on Shopify, and you do not really need one. An all-or-nothing crowdfunding campaign with a unit goal is an MOQ campaign under a different name. You set the goal to the number of units your factory requires. If enough customers order before the deadline, production is funded by real paid orders. If they do not, nobody is stuck with anything, because buyers are charged now, automatically refunded if the goal is missed. The risk your manufacturer pushed onto you does not get pushed onto your customers. It gets shared across the whole group, and it only becomes real once the group is big enough.
How to set one up
- Set a unit goal at or slightly above your MOQ. If the factory needs 300 units, a goal of 320 gives you a small buffer for cancellations. There is more on choosing numbers in how to price and set a crowdfunding goal.
- Pick a deadline that matches your production schedule, not a round number. If your production slot is eight weeks out, close the campaign early enough to place the order, receive stock, and ship without breaking promises.
- If the run is limited, add a max cap. A campaign can be funded and capped at the same time: it succeeds at 300 units and stops selling at 500, so you never take an order you cannot produce. The storefront widget shows live progress, backer count, and a countdown, so shoppers can see both how close the run is to happening and how close it is to selling out.
Why charged orders beat pledges for hitting an MOQ
A waitlist signup tells you someone is curious. A charged order tells you they will pay. When a factory asks you to commit real money, your demand signal should be real money too. That is why campaign orders go through the normal Shopify checkout as real orders, not pledges to be charged later. Cards that decline, buyers who hesitate, a price that is slightly too high: all of that surfaces before you wire a deposit to the factory, not after. If you are still deciding whether to test demand this way at all, validate demand before buying inventory walks through the options.
What happens if you miss the MOQ
Sometimes the group does not show up, and finding that out cheaply is the point of running the campaign. You refund every backer in one click through Shopify, back to their original payment method. The mechanics are covered in how crowdfunding refunds work on Shopify. You also do not walk away empty handed. The campaign ran on your own store, so the customer emails belong to you, and you can export a backer CSV. Reaching 180 of 300 units is not nothing. It is a clear signal that demand exists but the price, the audience, or the product needs another pass.
Honest limits of this approach
Fundcap campaigns are one product each, so if your MOQ spans several different products, you would run a separate campaign for each one. There are no reward tiers or bundles yet, and no deposits or partial pledges yet. Both are on the roadmap, and there is a longer note on the deposit model in campaign deposits. If your MOQ math depends heavily on Kickstarter-style tier pricing, a dedicated crowdfunding platform is honestly a better fit today. All-or-nothing vs preorders can help you decide which model you actually need.
Fundcap runs MOQ-style all-or-nothing campaigns on your own Shopify store for $19 a month flat. No percentage of your raise, no per-order fees, and a 14-day free trial. Building a campaign is free; the plan only starts when you take it live.