WooCommerce allows merchants to offer pre-orders for products to generate early sales, gauge market demand, and fund production costs. Merchants should determine the product, pre-order start and end dates, whether to charge customers upfront or upon shipping, and the planned shipping date. Popular payment gateways for processing pre-orders through WooCommerce include Authorize.net, Stripe, Square, and Braintree, providing options for merchants to securely accept online pre-order payments.