Written by Kris Slazinski

Description: Discover the latest enhancements to App Store pre-orders, including regional publishing. We'll show you how to use App Store Connect to set up pre-orders to simultaneously soft launch your app and offer it in different regions.

About pre-orders

• When you make your app available for pre-order, its product page becomes published on the App Store. The app can be purchased before it's released for download.
• On release day, your customers will be notified and your app will be automatically downloaded on their devices.

What's new

• Ability to offer your app for pre-order on a regional basis.
• You can also first release your app to a few regions, as a soft launch or limited release, and then offer your app for pre-order in any other region you choose.

Pre-orders set up examples

To set up your first pre-order in App Store Connect, go to App Store tab, Pricing and Availability page and click Set Up Availability. And choose regions.

After pre-orders are set up, uou can check where the app is available and not available. Here you can also expand pre-order to other regions. You can also edit and update release date, release your app immediately or remove your pre-order.

The expected release date you can set for pre-orders: - unreleased app - up to 180 days in the future - app that's already published on the App Store - up to 365 days in the future

Marketing pre-order app and tracking the performance of pre-orders

• Apple provides localized badges for your website (use them to link people to your product page).
• Pre-order apps are discoverable through search, and may be featured on the Today, Games, or Apps tabs on the App Store.
• The performance of your pre-orders can be tracked from within App Analytics, where you can find the number of purchased pre-orders by date and by region.
• You'll be able to run custom product pages and product page optimization tests for any pre-order app.

Wrap-up

• More flexible pre-orders
• Set up pre-orders on App Store Connect
• Functionality covered in this talk can be automated with App Store Connect API