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Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule

By: admin, November 25, 2004  
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You have a reasonable basis to be able to ship the merchandise in 30 days. That being the case, you make no shipment representation in your advertising. When your prospective customer calls to place the order on July 1, nothing has happened to change your belief that you can ship in 30 days, so in accepting the order you provide no updated shipment information. You plan to ship the order by July 31. 
On July 10, you realize you cannot ship by July 31. Within a few days (reasonably quickly so the customer has time to make a decision), you send a delay notice with a revised shipment date. Based on information such as customer demand for the merchandise and information you recently received from your suppliers, you reasonably believe that you will be able to ship 30 days from the original shipment date. The revised shipping date you provide in the delay notice is August 30, i.e., 30 days from July 31. Your delay notice explains that, unless the customer tells you otherwise, you will assume that the customer is willing to wait for the merchandise until then. 
Having heard nothing from the customer, on August 10 you realize that you will not be able to ship by August 30, so reasonably promptly you send a second delay option notice saying when you now reasonably believe you will be able to ship. The notice tells the customer that the order will be cancelled automatically on August 30 unless you have already shipped by then or the customer expressly tells you not to cancel.