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Sold Something You Don't Have? The FTC's 30-Day Rule for Online Stores

Under the FTC’s Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, a seller must have a reasonable basis to ship when promised, or within 30 days if no date is given (50 days when the buyer applies for the seller’s credit). If it can’t, it must tell the customer the new date and let them agree to the delay or cancel. A cancelled order is refunded within seven working days, or one billing cycle on the seller’s own credit, and store credit can’t replace the refund. A store avoids most delays by holding stock at checkout and committing it at payment.

Last updated 2 min read

From our case study on building a shopping cart and checkout. This is how we build stores, not legal advice.

Every store oversells eventually. A count is off, a supplier is late, two people buy the last chair in the same minute. What happens next isn’t up to you. In the US, it’s set by the FTC.

What the rule says

The FTC’s Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule covers online orders:

  • Ship when you said. You need a reasonable basis for any date you promise.
  • No date promised? 30 days. 50 days if the buyer applies for credit with you to pay.
  • Can’t make it? Ask. Before the deadline, tell the customer the new ship date (or that you don’t know it) and offer the choice: agree to the delay, or cancel at your expense.
  • Silence is only consent the first time, and only for a delay of 30 days or less. After that, the customer must actively agree.
  • Refund promptly. Within seven working days, or one billing cycle when you extended the credit yourself.
  • Store credit doesn’t count. The rule rules out credit toward future purchases, vouchers and scrip in place of a refund.

Build the store so it rarely comes to that

We check stock at three moments:

  1. Adding to the cart. Nothing is held yet. Show “in stock”, “only 3 left”, or a backorder date, and offer “notify me” when it’s gone.
  2. Starting checkout. Hold the stock for a short time (we use 15 minutes). If it ran out while the item sat in the cart, say so now, before payment.
  3. Payment accepted. The hold becomes a firm allocation the warehouse can pick.

If the shelf is still short when picking, the order moves to Backordered, and the FTC notice goes out automatically with the new date and two buttons: wait, or cancel.

Make cancelling cheap

How you take payment decides how painful a cancellation is. If cards are only authorized at order and captured at shipping, cancelling before shipment just voids the hold: no charge, no refund to wait for, no processing fee. Charge-at-once methods like Alipay need a real refund, so they’re the ones to watch on backorders.

The full case study has the flowchart for all three stock checks, the order states, and the cancel-and-return rules: Shopping cart and checkout case study →

Building a store, or fixing one that oversells? Get in touch.

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