Most sellers think of shipping deadlines as a marketplace problem — Amazon's on-time delivery rate, eBay's handling time, TikTok Shop's dispatch SLA. Miss those and you lose Buy Box share or seller status. Annoying, recoverable.
There is a second set of deadlines that is not a platform policy at all. It is federal law, it applies to every online order you take regardless of where you sell, and the penalties are measured in tens of millions of dollars per violation. It is formally the Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, 16 CFR Part 435, and almost everyone calls it the FTC 30-day shipping rule.
Most sellers comply with it by accident, because they ship quickly. The exposure shows up precisely when things go wrong: a supplier misses a container, a pre-order slips, a bestseller backorders in Q4. Here is what the rule actually requires.
What the rule requires
Three bonds sit at the center of it.
First, a reasonable basis. When you solicit an order, you must have a reasonable basis to believe you can ship within the time you advertise. If you promise two-day dispatch on a product sitting in a container mid-Pacific, you are in breach at the moment you take the order — not 30 days later.
Second, a default deadline. If you state no shipping time anywhere, the law supplies one: 30 days from receipt of a properly completed order. Silence does not buy you time; it imposes the default.
Third, a delay notice. If you cannot ship on time, you must notify the buyer before the original deadline passes and give them a real choice: consent to the new date, or cancel for a full refund.
When the clock actually starts
The clock starts when you receive a «properly completed order» — meaning you have the payment details and the information needed to fill and ship it. Not when the item ships, not when your 3PL picks it, and not when the payment settles.
Two practical consequences that catch sellers out:
- An order placed at 11 pm Friday starts its clock that day, not Monday morning.
- «Shipped» means the goods are physically in the carrier's hands. Generating a label and letting the parcel sit for four days in the warehouse does not stop the clock — and the pre-transit tracking scan is the evidence against you.
This is also why an accurate estimated delivery date at checkout matters legally and not just commercially. The date you display is the promise you are held to.
Delay option notices: the part sellers get wrong
A delay notice is not an apology email. It is a structured disclosure, and the requirements tighten the longer the delay runs.
| First delay notice | Subsequent delay notice | |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Before the original shipping deadline passes | Before the revised date passes |
| Must include | Revised shipping date, the right to cancel for a full refund, and a cost-free way to reply | Same, plus clear notice that non-response means cancellation |
| If the new date is 30 days or less | Silence may be treated as consent to the delay | Silence may not be treated as consent — you must cancel and refund |
| If the new date is more than 30 days out, or indefinite | Silence must be treated as cancellation — refund it | Same |
The asymmetry in the bottom rows is the whole point. On a first, short delay, a non-responding customer can be kept waiting. In every other case, the default flips: no answer means cancellation and refund. Sellers who assume silence always equals consent accumulate violations quietly, one order at a time.
Notices may be sent electronically. Email is fine — provided you can prove it was sent and delivered.
Refund timelines by payment method
When a refund is owed, «prompt» has a specific meaning that depends on how the customer paid.
| Payment method | Refund deadline |
|---|---|
| Cash, check, money order | Within 7 working days, by first-class mail |
| Credit card | Credit the account within one billing cycle |
| Prepaid or bank transfer (ACH) | Within 7 working days |
Two things are not permitted: issuing store credit or a gift card instead of money, and making the customer ask twice. If cancellation is triggered, the refund is automatic — you issue it without waiting for a request.
Pre-orders, backorders and dropshipping
These three models generate most of the real-world exposure, because the seller does not control the inventory.
Pre-orders
A pre-order is fully covered. State a specific expected ship date rather than a vague season, and build in buffer — a slipped date triggers the full delay-notice machinery. If the date is genuinely unknown, say so explicitly, because an indefinite date means non-response counts as cancellation from the first notice onward.
Backorders
When an item goes out of stock after the order is placed, the delay notice is due before the original deadline, not when the restock finally lands. Tie your post-purchase messaging to inventory status so the notice fires automatically rather than depending on someone noticing.
Dropshipping
You are the seller of records. Your supplier's transit time is your shipping time, and their delay is your violation. If your supplier routinely runs 15 to 25 days, your advertised shipping window has to reflect that honestly — our guide to dropshipping shipping times covers how to set those expectations without killing conversion.
Records are your defense
This is the detail that surprises people most. If you cannot produce records showing you have systems and procedures designed to ensure compliance, the rule creates a rebuttable presumption that you did not comply. The burden lies on you, not the regulator.
What that means in practice — keep, per order:
- Order timestamp and the shipping promise displayed at the time of purchase
- Carrier acceptance scan, not just label creation
- Copies of any delay notices sent, with send and delivery logs
- Customer responses, including the absence of one
- Refund date, amount and method
- Written procedures covering how delays and cancellations are handled
Most of this already exists across your order management system, shipping platform and email tool. The gap is usually that nobody can assemble it per order on demand. The same evidence trail also wins item-not-received chargebacks, so the work pays for itself twice.
What does non-compliance cost?
Mail Order Rule violations carry civil penalties that currently exceed $50,000 per violation, adjusted annually for inflation. Critically, each non-compliant order can be counted as a separate violation — which is how enforcement actions against online retailers have reached judgments in the millions. During the pandemic-era supply shocks, the FTC made the point explicitly: there is no exception for circumstances outside the seller's control. Supply chain disruption is a reason to send the notice, not a defense for skipping it.
A practical compliance checklist
- Publish a specific shipping or handling window on every product page, and make sure it is achievable.
- Trigger delay notices automatically from order age, not from someone remembering.
- Write both notice templates in advance — first notice and subsequent notice — with the correct consent language in each.
- Default to cancel-and-refund whenever a customer does not respond, except on a first short delay.
- Refund credit cards within one billing cycle; never substitute store credit.
- Measure ship time from carrier acceptance scan, not label creation.
- Retain the per-order evidence trail above, and document the procedure itself.
Done properly, none of this slows you down. It is mostly automation you probably already own, pointed at a deadline you may not have been tracking.
Ship on the promise you made
The FTC 30-day shipping rule rewards exactly what good fulfillment operations do anyway: promise realistically, communicate early when something slips, and refund without friction. The sellers who get caught are not the slow ones — they are the quiet ones.
At HereWeShip, we help online sellers tighten dispatch times and keep delivery promises credible across every channel they sell on. Talk to us about your fulfillment setup and find out where your real ship-time risk sits.
This article is general information for online sellers, not legal advice. Penalty amounts are adjusted annually and rule requirements can change — consult the current text of 16 CFR Part 435 or a qualified attorney for your specific situation.
