A butcher's Christmas runs on pre-orders. Customers book their turkey in November and collect it on the 23rd or 24th. You need to know, weeks ahead, how many birds to order and how many people will walk through the door each hour. On Shopify that means three things: a collection day and slot the customer chooses, a cap you can't go over, and a last day to order.
This guide follows an illustrative family butcher. The same setup works for a bakery taking yule logs and mince pies, or a cake shop taking Christmas cakes.
The short answer
- Collection day and slot: a pickup location in OrderRules with collection windows. Each window takes a set number of orders per day.
- How many birds: a daily limit on each Christmas product, counted by the collection date.
- Closed days: closed dates on the location for 25 and 26 December, the bank holiday on 28 December, and 1 January.
- Booking ahead: Max days ahead set to 60, so 24 December can be booked from early November.
- Last order day: set the Christmas products to Draft in Shopify on that day.
All of it is on the Advanced plan, and none of it needs Shopify Plus.
The illustrative butcher
| Setting | |
|---|---|
| Collection days | Mon 21 to Thu 24 December 2026 |
| Collection windows | 08:00β10:00, 10:00β12:00, 12:00β14:00, 14:00β16:00 |
| Orders per window | 30 |
| Turkeys per collection day | 40 (sizes share the limit) |
| Rib of beef per collection day | 25 |
| Closed | 25, 26 and 28 December, 1 January |
| Last order day | Wed 16 December |
Step 1: a pickup location that reaches Christmas Eve
Shopify's Pickup in store gives customers a pickup option at checkout. It doesn't let them choose a day or a time. OrderRules adds that on top of it.
In Delivery & pickup, tick Offer in-store pickup, then Add pickup location and link it to your shop's Shopify location. Then set:
- Pickup-available weekdays: the days you hand over orders.
- Lead time (days) and Cutoff (HH:MM): the earliest day a customer can choose. With a lead time of 2 and a 12:00 cutoff, an order placed before noon on Monday can be collected on Wednesday.
- Max days ahead: 60. This is the one people miss. A pickup location lets customers book 14 days ahead unless you change it. On 2 November, 24 December is 52 days away, so with the default your customers can't book it until 10 December.
A pickup location's dates apply to the whole order, so the turkey, the sausage meat and the stuffing all come on the same day. That's usually what a butcher wants.
Step 2: collection windows with a cap
Create a Time slot template with your four windows and set Cap/day to 30 on each. Choose the template on the pickup location.
Each window then takes 30 pickup orders a day. When one fills, it's greyed out in the picker and checkout is blocked if it fills while someone is paying. The customer sees "That pickup time is full. Please choose another." You can change that wording.
Caps count orders, not items. A customer collecting a turkey and a gammon takes one place in the window.
Step 3: cap the birds per collection day
Orders per window control the queue at your counter. They don't control how many turkeys you sell. For that, use a product limit.
- Put the turkey sizes (4β5 kg, 6β7 kg, 8β9 kg) under one product as variants.
- In Product Limits, add a limit on the turkey and set Count daily limits by to Delivery date.
- Set the daily limit to 40, with no variant overrides.
All sizes now share 40 per collection day. A pickup date counts the same way as a delivery date, so if you also deliver, both share the 40. Do the same for the rib of beef with 25.
When a day has 3 turkeys left and a customer tries to take 4, checkout is blocked with "Only 3 left for delivery on 2026-12-23. Please reduce the quantity or choose another date." The wording says "delivery" even for collection orders.
Full details, and what we saw when we tested a shared limit on a dev store: limit products per delivery date, not orders.
Step 4: close the days you don't open
Add closed dates to the pickup location for 25 and 26 December, Monday 28 December (the Boxing Day bank holiday) and 1 January. Customers can't choose them, and checkout is blocked if a closed date is sent.
Closed dates on a location only stop collection. Your online store stays open for orders. If you also want to stop orders on those days, use the holiday calendar. The difference is explained in Shopify holiday cut-offs and blackout dates.
Step 5: your last order day
Most butchers stop taking Christmas orders about a week before, so they can order stock. OrderRules works out the earliest day from the lead time and cutoff. It has no fixed "last order day" setting.
On your last order day, open the Christmas products in Shopify and set them to Draft, or remove them from your online store sales channel. Orders already placed keep their collection day and slot, and the rest of your range stays on sale. Put the date in the product description from the start, so nobody is surprised.
Step 6: make the date required
Turn on Require a delivery date at checkout on the availability rule for your Christmas products. A customer with no collection date is stopped at checkout with "Please choose a pickup date before checking out."
This matters for Buy it now and Apple Pay or Google Pay buttons on the product page. They skip the cart, where the date is saved. See Buy It Now skips the delivery date.
Your prep list
Turn on Tag orders with delivery date & slot. Each order is tagged pickup:2026-12-23 and with its slot. In Shopify admin, search orders by that tag to print the prep list for the day, then sort by slot to plan the counter.
What OrderRules can't do yet
Know these before you open the order book:
- Christmas-only days for one product. You can't make the turkey collectable only on 21β24 December. The location's dates apply to every product. Write the collection days on the product page, and search orders by
pickup:tag in early December for any turkey booked on the wrong day. - A bigger cap on the 23rd. A window's Cap/day and a product's daily limit are the same on every date. Set them for your busiest day.
- Shorter hours on Christmas Eve. The windows come from one template, so Christmas Eve gets the same windows as every other day. If you close at 14:00 on the 24th, size the template for that and add a later window only if it suits every day.
- A fixed last order day. Covered above: set the products to Draft on the day.
- Changing an order. Moving a customer to another day in Shopify admin doesn't move their place. Cancelling an order releases it.
If you deliver as well
Delivery uses an availability rule rather than the pickup location. Scope a rule to your Christmas collection with its own Lead time (days) and Max days ahead.
When a cart holds products with different rules, the customer can only choose dates that every rule allows. If your store-wide rule allows 30 days ahead and the Christmas rule 60, a cart with a turkey and an everyday item can only be booked 30 days ahead. Raise the store-wide Max days ahead for December too.
Checklist
- Pickup location linked to your Shopify location, Max days ahead 60
- Time slot template with Cap/day on each window
- Sizes as variants of one product; daily limit counted by Delivery date
- Closed dates: 25, 26, 28 December and 1 January
- Require a delivery date at checkout on
- Order tagging on, for prep lists
- Last order day in the product descriptions, and a reminder to set the products to Draft
- A test order, ideally on a development store first