Pre-Order Policy Checklist: Draft Yours and Check Delivery Rules

A pre-order policy should say what the buyer is paying for, the dispatch date, when the card is charged, what happens if the date slips, how to cancel and how the refund arrives. On delivery, UK and EU consumer rules default to 30 days when no date is agreed, and the US FTC order rule says ship by your stated date or within 30 days.

The policy is the easy half. The harder half is keeping it true: a date you publish is a promise the rules hold you to, and a policy cannot cancel that. AI is useful for turning your real answers into clear wording and for spotting what you left out. It is a poor judge of which rule applies to your customers, so every legal point below ends with a place to check.

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What a buyer needs to know before paying

Think of the policy as the answers to the questions a nervous buyer would ask before clicking the button. If an answer is missing, the buyer either leaves or writes to you afterwards, and a few of those messages arrive angry. The checklist below is grouped the way a buyer reads. Each line has its reason, so you can decide what to keep.

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Group one: the product and the date

• The item is not in stock yet. Say it in the first line of the product page, not only in the policy. A buyer who finds out from the confirmation email has a fair complaint.
• An expected dispatch date, or a range with a latest date. "Ships by 14 March" is stronger than "ships in 4 to 6 weeks", because it can be checked, and delivery rules attach to what you stated.
• What dispatch means. Leaves your premises, not arrives. Give the usual transit time separately.
• What can move the date. Supplier delay, a production run, a customs hold. Name two or three real causes rather than writing "circumstances beyond our control".
• Mixed baskets. State whether in-stock items ship now or wait for the pre-order item. This is the commonest source of surprise postage charges.

Group two: money

• When the card is charged. At order, at dispatch, or a deposit now and the balance later.
• The deposit amount and what it secures. If a deposit becomes non-refundable once production starts, say so in the same sentence as the amount. For standard goods sold online to consumers in the UK or EU, check that clause against the cancellation window in group three first: a non-refundable label does not switch that right off.
• Price protection. Whether the buyer pays the price shown at order if you later raise it, and whether they get the benefit if you lower it.
• Shipping charges. Fixed now, or worked out at dispatch.

Group three: delays, cancelling and refunds

• How you will tell the buyer about a delay (the email on the order), how soon, and what choice they then get.
• How to cancel before dispatch, in one step: reply to the confirmation email or use an account link.
• Refund method and timing: to the original payment method, within a stated number of days of cancelling.
• What happens if you never ship. Full refund, including shipping paid.
• The legal cancellation window and returns. Online buyers in the UK and EU can usually cancel from the moment they order until 14 days after delivery, without giving a reason, and must be told how before they order. Goods made to the buyer's own specification or clearly personalised are the main exception. Point to your normal returns policy, which cannot offer less than that, and flag any made-to-order items.

The delivery rules to check your draft against

Two sets of rules matter to most online sellers, and they agree more than they differ. Neither is a reason to avoid pre-orders. Both punish the seller who promised a date and then went quiet.

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UK and EU: 30 days unless a date is agreed

Under section 28 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a consumer sales contract is treated as including a term that you deliver without undue delay and in any event within 30 days of the contract, unless you and the buyer agreed another time. If you miss it, the buyer can end the contract straight away when you refuse to deliver or when delivery on time was essential. In other cases the buyer can set a reasonable new deadline, and if you miss that too, treat the contract as ended. You must then reimburse all payments without undue delay. The UK government's page on consumer contracts for online sellers repeats the 30-day default and adds that you must give the price, delivery costs, delivery timing, cancellation terms and the conditions for any deposit before the order is placed, in a form the customer can save. If you sell to EU consumers, Article 18 of the EU Consumer Rights Directive sets the same default (deliver without undue delay and within 30 days unless you agreed otherwise) and a similar route: the buyer gives you a reasonable extra period, or ends the contract at once where the date was essential, and you then refund all sums paid without undue delay.

What this means for a pre-order: if your page says "ships 14 March", that is the agreed date. If it says only "pre-order now", the 30-day default may be running from the order, and a long wait will breach it. Every pre-order page needs a stated date.

US: the FTC Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule

The US Federal Trade Commission's rule covers goods ordered online. Its business guide sets out the points that bite for pre-orders:

• If you state a shipping time, you need a reasonable basis for it. If you state none, you have 30 days from receiving a properly completed order.
• If you cannot ship on time, send a delay notice quickly, no later than the promised date, offering the buyer the choice to agree to the delay or cancel for a full, prompt refund.
• Where the new date is 30 days or less after the original, you may treat silence as consent, but only if the notice says so expressly. Where the new date is later than that, or you cannot give one, silence is not consent: the order cancels automatically unless the buyer agrees to wait or you ship within the originally promised time plus 30 days.
• Refunds are due within 7 working days of the order being cancelled, including card payments where a third party is the creditor; where you are the creditor yourself, the charge must be removed within one billing cycle.
• Products not yet available are covered unless you meet every condition the guide lists for a "dry test": no suggestion that the item will ship, a clear statement that it is only planned and may not ship, no substitutions, and, if you have not decided to ship within a reasonable time after taking orders, a notice that lets buyers cancel and get a prompt refund. A normal pre-order with a dispatch date is not a dry test, so the full rule applies.
• Records are not mandatory, but without evidence that your systems work, the guide says the law presumes you had no reasonable basis for your shipping promises. Keep each order's notices and refunds.

The guide, last edited in January 2025 for inflation-adjusted maximums, quotes civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation, and a September 2026 FTC notice kept the 2025 penalty levels unchanged for 2026, so this is worth ten minutes of care. Both pages change from time to time, so open them on the day you finalise the policy and do not rely on this summary alone.

A prompt that drafts the policy from your real answers

AI writes a decent policy only when it is given facts. Without them it invents generic promises such as "ships within 2 to 4 weeks" that may match nothing you can do. Answer the questions first, then paste them in.

You are drafting a pre-order policy for a small online store.
Write in plain, friendly English (our store's spelling) at a reading age of about 12.
Use ONLY the facts below. If a fact is missing, write [CHECK: what is missing]
instead of guessing. Do not invent dates, days or fees.

Facts:
- Product type: [what is being pre-ordered]
- Estimated dispatch date: [date or range] (firm / estimate)
- Reasons the date could move: [list]
- Card charged: [at order / at dispatch / deposit of X then balance]
- Deposit refundable? [yes / no / until production starts]
- Mixed baskets: [ship together / ship separately, postage rule]
- How we tell buyers about a delay: [email, within X days of knowing]
- What the buyer can do after a delay notice: [wait / cancel for full refund]
- How to cancel before dispatch: [steps]
- Refund method and time: [original payment method, X days]
- Returns after delivery: [normal policy / exceptions]

Output: (1) a 90-word summary for the product page, (2) the full policy
under headings, (3) a list of any [CHECK] gaps, (4) the sentences that
make a promise about timing or money, quoted, so I can verify each one.

The fourth output is the useful one. It lists every sentence that creates an obligation, which is exactly what you check against the two rule sets above. Run the prompt in a ChatGPT or Claude project that holds your returns policy and delivery page, so the draft can point to them instead of contradicting them.

Filled in for a clothing store's winter jacket

Illustration: an online clothing store takes pre-orders for a waxed jacket arriving from its maker in 10 weeks. Its answers: estimated dispatch 12 January (an estimate, because the maker has not finished the run); card charged in full at order; mixed baskets ship together unless the buyer picks "send in-stock items now"; the store emails buyers within 3 working days of learning of a delay; cancellation is a reply to the confirmation email until dispatch.

A first AI draft came back with the sentences below, shown with what the store changed:

Look at the third row. The store's returns period still applies after delivery, so the policy points to it and does not repeat it. Repeating it in two places is how two versions drift apart.

Choosing when to charge the card

The charging decision shapes how much refund work you have later, so make it deliberately. Payment providers differ on how long a card authorisation holds and on charging before dispatch, so read your provider's seller terms before you pick.

A furniture maker taking orders for a dining table shows the deposit route. It asks for 30 percent at order, to cover timber, and the balance when the table is finished. The policy says the deposit is refundable until the timber is cut and not after, and names the stage at which that happens. That can work here because each table is built to the buyer's chosen size and finish, which is the made-to-specification exception to the online cancellation window; a standard table sold online would still carry the 14-day right, deposit or not. A date, an amount and a reason are easier to defend than a bare "deposits are non-refundable".

A quick sum on what a delay costs you

Say 120 pre-orders of a $90 item are taken, all paid at order, and the supplier slips by six weeks. If you send a delay notice with a cancel option and 15 percent cancel, that is 18 refunds and $1,620 going back, plus the payment fees you may not recover (check your provider's refund terms). With a charge-at-dispatch model the same 18 people cancel before any money moved. The number is invented, but the pattern is real: the earlier you charge, the more a delay costs in admin as well as cash.

Writing the delay notice before you need it

The FTC guide wants a delay notice sent no later than the promised date with a clear choice, and the 30-day consumer rules let the buyer end the contract when you miss an agreed date that was essential, or a reasonable extra deadline they set. Prepare two short templates now, because a late, muddled notice is where sellers get into trouble.

Write two customer emails for a pre-order delay.
Facts: item [name], original dispatch date [date], new estimated date [date or "unknown"],
reason [honest one-line reason], cancellation method [steps], refund timing [X days].
Email A: the new date is no more than 30 days after the original. It must say
the buyer can cancel for a full refund, how, and (only if our policy says so) that
we will treat no reply as agreement.
Email B: the new date is more than 30 days later, or unknown. It must state the
reason, that the order will be cancelled and refunded automatically unless the
buyer agrees to wait, and how to agree. No reply is NOT agreement.
Plain tone, under 150 words each, no apology paragraph.

Illustrative output for Email A, trimmed: "Hello [first name], your jacket is now expected to dispatch on 2 February, three weeks later than we said. The maker's dye batch was rejected and re-run. You can wait, or cancel for a full refund by replying CANCEL before 2 February. If we do not hear from you we will keep your order and ship on the new date." What you would fix: the closing sentence treats silence as agreement, which is only acceptable when the delay is 30 days or less and your notice and policy say so. If your policy does not, change the last sentence to ask for a reply.

Checks that catch the usual mistakes

Run these once on the finished draft and again each time you change the page.

1. Read the product page, the checkout text and the confirmation email together. The date, payment timing and cancellation route must match word for word. A checkout page that says "ships in 1 to 2 weeks" overrides a policy that says 6 weeks.
2. Test the cancel route. Place a test pre-order and cancel it. Count the steps and compare the refund time with the promise.
3. Look for the 30-day trap. Any pre-order page without a specific date is a risk under both rule sets. Add a date, or a range with a latest date.
4. Ask someone outside the business three questions: when am I charged, when will it arrive, and what if it is late? If they hesitate, rewrite the clause.
5. Keep a record. A spreadsheet row per delayed order with the notice date, buyer reply and refund date. The FTC guide says records protect you if your methods are questioned.

When the policy and the shop software disagree

A specialist food importer taking pre-orders for a seasonal olive oil run wrote "charged at dispatch" in its policy, while the store's pre-order app captured payment at checkout. The app setting won, and customers saw the charge weeks early. Check the app's payment setting against the policy, and read the confirmation email the app sends, because many apps ship with their own default wording.

Four situations to write for separately

Partial supply. You ordered 200 units and the supplier delivers 140. The policy should say orders ship in the order they were placed, and buyers still waiting get a delay notice, not silence.

Price changes. If the supplier raises the cost, decide before you launch whether pre-order buyers keep their price. If you want the right to adjust, say so before they pay and give them the choice to cancel. Do not add charges later.

Substitutions. If a colour fails, do not send another. The FTC guide says differences in design, style, colour or fabric are presumed material, so offer the buyer a choice or a refund.

Cancelled products. If you decide never to ship, refund everything including shipping already paid, promptly, and say so in one email.

On the product page itself

The policy page is read by few people, so put a short version next to the button. Here is one for the garage-supplies version of the same idea, a car repair garage's online shop taking pre-orders for a batch of branded workshop jackets (illustrative): "Pre-order. Not in stock yet. Expected dispatch from 20 October. You pay $65 now. Cancel before dispatch for a full refund within 5 working days. If the date moves we email you within 3 working days, and you can cancel then too." Five sentences, each a fact the full policy repeats. If the product page and the policy ever differ, the shorter one is what a buyer will quote back to you.

Keeping the policy true over time

Put a date in your calendar one week before each promised dispatch date. At that point ask the supplier for a firm update, because it is far better to send a delay notice early than on the day. Add a column for the supplier's confirmed date next to the one you published, and have a short AI prompt compare the two each Monday and list any pre-orders where they differ by more than a week. If supplier lead times are the weak link, automating purchase orders and supplier emails helps you chase them, and choosing a pre-order app and setting its ship dates covers the store settings. For where pre-orders sit among the rest of your order flow, see AI for ecommerce orders, stock and returns.

Finally, keep one master copy of the policy, with the facts that feed it in a short table at the top. When a fact changes, change it there and regenerate the dependent wording through the same prompt, so the product page, the policy and the email templates move together. Treat the AI draft as a draft: nobody should publish it until a person has read every sentence that promises a date or a refund.

Questions sellers ask before publishing a pre-order policy

Can I charge the full price at the moment of pre-order?

Often yes, but say so plainly on the product page and in the policy. Some sellers prefer to charge when the stock is ready to ship, which cuts refund work if the date slips. Whichever you choose, check what your payment provider allows and make sure the checkout wording matches the policy exactly.

Does a pre-order policy let me ignore a delivery date I gave?

No. A policy sets expectations, but a date you published is a promise. Consumer rules in many places let the buyer cancel and be refunded when you miss an agreed date, whatever the policy says. Write the date as an estimate only if you honestly cannot commit, and tell buyers early when it moves.

Should the policy differ for deposits and full payments?

Yes. A deposit policy needs the deposit amount, what it secures, when the balance falls due and whether the deposit is refundable. Keep it as a separate short section so the buyer sees both cases. Test the wording with someone outside your business to see whether they can state what they would lose by cancelling.

Can AI write the legal parts of the policy for me?

AI can draft clear wording and spot gaps, but it does not know your contracts, your customers' locations or recent changes in law. Use it for the first draft, check the delivery and refund points against the official pages named in this tutorial, and ask a qualified adviser to read the final text if sizeable money is involved.

Further reads

• AI Supplier Management: Track Prices, Lead Times, and Risk — Track the supplier lead times your promised date depends on.
• Game Store Inventory Management: Preorders and Trade-Ins With AI — How a shop handles pre-orders next to normal stock.
• How to Compare Supplier Quotes Side by Side With AI — Get firmer lead times when comparing supplier quotes.
• How to Use AI to Set Reorder Points and Prevent Stockouts — Set reorder points so pre-orders become the exception.
• AI for Farmers Market Vendors: Pre-Orders, Pricing and Weekly Posts — A small-scale take on taking orders ahead of stock.
• AI for Butchers: Christmas Pre-Orders, Cut Lists and Pick-Up Slots — A seasonal pre-order run with fixed collection slots.
• AI Powered Automation Tools for a Games Shop: Events and Pre-Orders — A games-shop workflow: event sign-up form, waitlist, pre-order deposit reminders and release-day texts, with AI writing the messages.
• Bakery Pre-Order Form for Christmas and Easter With AI — Form fields, slot caps, deposit wording and a reminder schedule, followed through a sample 120-order Christmas season with AI drafting the words.
• Kickstarter Campaign Page: Draft the Story and Reward Tiers With AI — Draft the story and video script with AI, then price each reward tier so fees and shipping don't eat the margin.
• Klaviyo Back in Stock Emails for Shopify: Setup and AI-Drafted Copy — Build the Klaviyo back in stock flow, draft honest copy with AI, and measure how many orders it truly recovers.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: the US Federal Trade Commission's business guide to the Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule; GOV.UK guidance on consumer contracts regulations for online sellers; section 28 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 on legislation.gov.uk; Articles 9, 16 and 18 of the EU Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU) on EUR-Lex; the FTC's September 2026 notice on civil penalty inflation adjustments. Open each page again before you publish.