Order placed in 2020....

KateGregory06

Hi,
I'm hoping someone could offer some advice on a current situation we have on going..

We had orders back in 2020 (just before covid-19 lock downs hit), that had to be postponed by most of the customers, which we agreed with all of the customers whom contacted us to allow them to continue to forfil their orders at a new date. 

(Wwe supply personalised wedding favours, the customers placed their orders with "TBC", as they didn't have their list of names at the time order was placed.)

We carried these orders over to 202, we did this as a goodwill gesture and due to material price rises we couldn't forfill any more orders after this date however all but 1 order has been completed before March 2023 and then placed a cut off date on our website for any orders that still required their orders this was March 2022 (this is when they had to let us know when their new dates were), 2 years past their originally order date. 

We now have 1 customer who is demanding we make their order as they'd not supplied us with a new date before March, do we have to forfil this order? It's been nearly 3 years, we hadn't agreed to hold this order with this customer.. Should we offer to make these but say there is an additional charge to to material costs? Can this customer make a claim via Paypal/Bank?

Thank you in advance.

Devongardener

Did they pay in advance when ordering?  Give them a choice of a refund or to accept an extra charge for increased material costs to fulfil  the order.  What do your T&Cs say about refunds?  hopefully you emailed all the customers with outstanding orders to explain the cutoff point rather than just a post on your website.

KateGregory06

Devongardener said:

Did they pay in advance when ordering?  Give them a choice of a refund or to accept an extra charge for increased material costs to fulfil  the order.  What do your T&Cs say about refunds?  hopefully you emailed all the customers with outstanding orders to explain the cutoff point rather than just a post on your website.

Thanks for your responce. 

They pay for the wedding favours and then supply us with their details (guest list) nearer the date they require them for. Most of the time customers have their lists ready at the time of ordering but there is always a handful of them that let us know at a different time/date.

We did inform all of our customers via email stating we have a cut off point, we have the normal cooling off period in our t&c's along with the added covid terms when covid hit, basically stating that we'd not be able to complete orders unless the customer agrees to pay the new material costs. We've not had any issues with any of our customers who have placed an order apart from this one. 

Just not sure on what to do as this order was placed in 2020 and the customer informed us that they were going to submit there order (supply list) in 2020 but never did until they contacted us last week.. They would have known about the cut off date because of the email we sent them.

DullGreyGuy

What were your T&Cs on the date they actually placed the order? Did they set a maximum timeframe? Did they cater for you cancelling the contract? Did they have terms about increasing prices if a long delay? Was there a force majeure clause? Did the terms allow you to vary the terms post purchase? When is the contract formed in your terms?

Whilst most people and businesses took a pragmatic approach to the impacts of Covid the pandemic didn't actually change contract law and so what options are open to you will ultimately come down to the terms of your contract. 

tightauldgit

What outcome are you looking for? Have they already paid?

Can you just refund them and be done with it? Probably (would cancelling cause them any actual losses beyond losing out on the products?) 

Can you ask them for more money? You probably can but they can probably say no and then it's back to a refund. unless you stipulated in your terms that you could increase prices?

Can you simply tell them 'sorry too late' and keep the money? I would doubt it