Shipping delay email templates for online stores

A delayed order costs you twice: once in the delay, and again in every "where is my order?" email it causes. The cheapest shipping delay email is the one you send first, before the customer notices.

Below are three templates for the situations a small store meets most, followed by what the US rule on delayed orders requires. Words in double braces, like {{order_number}}, are blanks: fill each one from the order, never from memory.

Template 1: a short delay, with a new date

Use this when you know the new ship date and it's close.

Hi {{first_name}},

I'm writing about your order {{order_number}}. It's taking longer than we said: it will now leave us on {{new_ship_date}}, not {{original_ship_date}}. {{one_line_reason}}

If you'd rather not wait, reply to this email and I'll cancel the order and refund you in full straight away. If we don't hear from you, we'll ship it on {{new_ship_date}}.

Sorry for the wait.

{{your_name}}

The reason is optional, and one line is enough. "A supplier delivered late" is better than a paragraph about the supply chain.

Template 2: a delay with no new date

Use this when you don't know when you can ship. Don't guess a date to make the email feel better; a second delay email hurts more than an honest first one.

Hi {{first_name}},

Your order {{order_number}} is delayed, and I don't yet have a date I can trust: {{what_is_holding_it_up}}.

You can cancel at any time before it ships and get a full refund — just reply to this email. If you'd like to keep the order, you don't need to do anything; I'll write again as soon as I have a date, and by {{latest_update_date}} at the latest.

{{your_name}}

If you sell to US customers, read the section on the FTC rule below before you send this one: with no date, silence from the customer doesn't count as agreeing to wait forever.

Template 3: the customer is already asking

The delay notice didn't go out in time, and now they're asking where their order is. Answer the question first, then apologise.

Hi {{first_name}},

You're right to ask — your order {{order_number}} hasn't shipped yet, and I should have told you. It's now due to leave us on {{new_ship_date}}.

If that's too late, I can cancel it and refund you in full today. Just reply "cancel".

{{your_name}}

If the order has in fact shipped and the parcel is late, this is the wrong email; use a where is my order reply instead.

What to put in every delay email

Whichever template you start from, a good delay email has four things:

What	Why
The order number	So the customer doesn't have to look it up, and you don't answer the wrong order.
A new date, or an honest "we don't know"	A guessed date that slips again costs more trust than none.
A way to cancel with a full refund	It's required in the US, and it's what a customer who can't wait is going to ask for anyway.
What happens if they don't reply	So nobody is surprised by a shipment, or by a cancellation.

The US rule: the FTC's "30-day rule"

The Federal Trade Commission's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule covers most goods ordered online. In its own business guide, the FTC sums it up like this:

• You must have a reasonable basis for any shipping time you state. If you state none, you must reasonably expect to ship within 30 days.
• If you learn you can't ship on time, you must ask the customer to consent to the delay — "reasonably quickly", so they can decide.
• The first delay notice must give a definite revised shipment date, or say you can't give one; say the customer can cancel and get "a full and prompt refund"; and give them a way to cancel at your expense, such as a reply email or a website.
• If the new date is 30 days or less after the original, you may treat silence as agreement, and the notice has to say so.
• If the new date is more than 30 days later, or you don't know it, the notice must say that the order will be cancelled automatically unless the customer agrees to wait.
• A refund is "prompt" when it's made within seven working days for most payment methods, or within one billing cycle if you extended the credit yourself.

The FTC's guide includes sample wording for each case. Templates 1 and 2 above follow its structure, but they aren't legal advice: if you ship large volumes to the US, read the guide itself.

Selling to customers in the EU or UK? The rules there are about cancelling and returning rather than shipping delays: see the EU right of withdrawal and UK refund rules for online orders. The FTC rule itself, in more detail: the FTC's 30-day shipping rule.

Send it before they ask

Most delay emails go out too late because nobody is watching for the delay. Two habits help:

1. Check unfulfilled orders daily. In Shopify, filter orders by "Unfulfilled" and sort by date. Anything past your stated handling time needs an email today.
2. Write the email once. Save the templates above as saved replies, so whoever is on support that day can send one in a minute.

When AI drafts the delay email

An AI drafting tool is good at the wording of these emails and bad at the facts in them: it doesn't know your new ship date, and if asked for one it will invent a plausible one. That is the one thing a delay email must never do.

Corresso leaves the order number, the tracking details and the ship date as blanks in every draft, and a rule holds any draft where the AI wrote one itself. With your Shopify store connected, the order sits beside the email, and the person answering fills the blanks from it with one click. How Corresso works with Shopify.