In short and in plain language
Many shops write in December: delivery by Christmas. This is more than an ad. What the shop says about delivery becomes part of the contract.
There are two kinds. A notice says: the parcel will likely come in two to four days. A promise says: the parcel will come by December 24. The shop gives its word on that.
If the parcel comes late, the customer may cancel the purchase. Most of the time, the customer must first give the shop a bit more time. With a firm promise for an important day, this step is sometimes not needed.
A shop sets a last day to order for each way of shipping. After that day, the text in the shop must change by itself. The same day belongs in the order email.
If time gets short, the shop tells customers early. It can offer fast shipping or pay the money back.
From mid-November, the line appears on many product pages: “Delivery by Christmas.” For customers it is often the final reason to buy; for the shop it is more than an advertising slogan. Under German law, what an online shop states about the delivery date in a distance contract becomes part of the contract unless something else has been expressly agreed (Section 312d(1) BGB). Whether it reads as a non-binding notice or a binding promise depends on the wording, and the wording decides what happens when the parcel only arrives on December 28. In the worst case, the customer can terminate the contract without granting a grace period. This article explains the mandatory information on the delivery date, shows when a promise allows termination without a deadline and when it does not, how to set an order cut-off per shipping method, what applies to pre-orders and partial deliveries, and how a shop should act when a date is about to slip. It places the legal situation in the context of shop operations and does not replace legal advice in an individual case.
Key takeaways
- Online shops must state before the order the date by which they commit to delivering the goods (Art. 246a Section 1(1) no. 10 EGBGB). This information becomes part of the contract (Section 312d(1) BGB).
- “Delivery time approx. 2 to 4 business days” on a product page is a notice; “Delivered by Dec 24 if ordered by Dec 18, 12 noon” is a promise with a calendar date. Missing it generally puts the shop in default without a reminder (Section 286(2) no. 1 BGB).
- For a mere delay, customers can terminate without a grace period only if a date or period is set in the contract and meeting it is recognizably essential to them, for example through a message before the contract or the circumstances of the purchase (Section 323(2) no. 2 BGB).
- An order cut-off applies per shipping method: count processing, transit time and a buffer back from Thursday, December 24, 2026. Once the cut-off passes, the line in the shop must switch automatically before the last shipping day.
- Partial deliveries need an agreement because the seller is not entitled to them (Section 266 BGB). Pre-order items with a later release date do not belong under a Christmas promise.
- If a delay looms, the shop informs customers at once with a new date and offers express shipping, partial delivery or cancellation. After termination, the benefits received must be returned (Section 346(1) BGB).
What the law requires on the delivery date
In a distance contract, the seller must inform the consumer as set out in Art. 246a of the Introductory Act to the German Civil Code (Section 312d(1) BGB). Alongside the total price, shipping costs and payment terms, the mandatory information expressly includes the delivery date. The provision lists it in the same item as the terms of payment, delivery and performance:
the terms of payment, delivery and performance, including, where available, environmentally friendly delivery options, the date by which the trader undertakes to deliver the goods or perform the service, and, where applicable, the trader’s complaint handling procedure (unofficial translation)
The word that matters is “undertakes.” The question is not how long a parcel takes on average, but which date the seller stands behind. The information must be available to the customer in a clear and comprehensible way before they submit their contractual declaration (Art. 246a Section 4(1) EGBGB), so on the product page or at the latest during checkout, not only in the confirmation email. Whether delivery restrictions apply, for example to islands or other countries, and which means of payment are accepted must be stated clearly at the latest when the ordering process begins (Section 312j(1) BGB); which methods are worth offering is covered in the article on payment methods in online shops. Section 312j(2) BGB, on the other hand, does not list the delivery date among the details that must appear in highlighted form immediately before the order button. There are still good reasons to repeat it there, because that is where the customer makes the decision.
The information keeps working after the contract is concluded. The confirmation of the contract on a durable medium, in practice the order confirmation email, must be provided at the latest when the goods are delivered (Section 312f(2) BGB) and must contain the information under Art. 246a EGBGB unless the seller has already provided it on a durable medium before. If no delivery time is set at all and none can be inferred from the circumstances, a fallback rule applies: the customer can only demand delivery without undue delay, and the seller must hand over the goods no later than 30 days (Section 475(1) BGB) after the contract is concluded. For an order placed on December 1, the outer limit is therefore December 31. Anyone who wants to win customers for Christmas Eve will not get far with this fallback rule. How the mandatory information fits into the overall plan for the season is covered in our article on preparing an online shop for the Christmas season.
Notice or promise: how the delivery line is read
The information the seller provides to fulfill the duty to inform becomes part of the contract unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise (Section 312d(1) BGB). This applies to a cautious statement as much as to a firm one, so what counts is what the line actually says. Interpretation looks for the true intention without clinging to the literal meaning of the words, and follows good faith with regard to common practice (Sections 133 and 157 BGB). A range with words such as “estimated” or “usually” describes an expectation. A calendar date with “delivered by” describes a deadline. In between lies a gray area in which banners, countdowns and design are read along with the text: putting “Under the tree in time” in large letters above a date moves a notice closer to a promise.
| Wording in the shop | Reading | Consequence of a delay |
|---|---|---|
| “Delivery time approx. 2 to 4 business days” | Estimate with an upper limit | Customer sets a reasonable grace period, then termination (Section 323(1) BGB) |
| “Order by Dec 18 and your parcel will usually arrive before Christmas” | Notice with a visible qualification | Usually as in the first row; the qualification must sit right next to the date |
| “Delivered by Dec 24 if ordered by Dec 18, 12 noon, standard shipping within Germany” | Calendar deadline tied to conditions | Default without a reminder (Section 286(2) no. 1 BGB); termination without a grace period if the date is essential to the customer (Section 323(2) no. 2 BGB) |
| “Delivery before Christmas” without a date or condition | Unclear, interpreted case by case | Disputes over content and date, so avoid it |
In practice, this means the choice between a notice and a promise is made deliberately, not in the ad copy. A promise is not a mistake; in December it can be exactly the argument that triggers the purchase. But it needs conditions placed next to the date: order cut-off with time of day, shipping method, destination country and items in stock. And it sits badly with a clause in the terms and conditions declaring all delivery dates non-binding. The customer then reads two contradictory statements, and a term in standard business terms by which the shop reserves insufficiently specific periods for performance is invalid (Section 308 no. 1 BGB). How to write such lines clearly and still persuasively is shown in our article on website copy that sells.
Use a countdown only if it is true
When a delay allows termination without a deadline
If the goods arrive late, the path to termination normally has two steps. The customer sets the seller a reasonable period for performance and can only terminate the contract once that period has expired without result (Section 323(1) BGB). In December, this is of little help: a grace period set on December 23 ends after Christmas Eve, and by then the present is late for the occasion.
No grace period is needed if the seller does not perform by a date or within a period specified in the contract, although timely performance is essential to the buyer according to a message from the buyer to the seller before the contract was concluded or on the basis of other circumstances accompanying the conclusion of the contract (Section 323(2) no. 2 BGB). Two conditions must therefore come together: the date or period is part of the contract, and meeting it is essential to the customer, recognizable from the customer’s message before the contract or from the circumstances of the purchase. The Consumer Rights Directive follows the same logic: it provides for immediate termination where delivery within the agreed period is essential taking into account all the circumstances, or where the consumer informed the trader of this before the contract was concluded (Directive 2011/83/EU).
For Christmas sales, this means that not every promise allows termination without a deadline. If the customer writes “present for Christmas Eve” in the order comment field, that can be a message before the contract is concluded, provided the contract only comes into being when the shop accepts the order. If the shop itself advertises delivery by December 24, the customer buys a box labeled as a gift and chooses express shipping for it, the accompanying circumstances can support the date being essential. A general delivery time range can also be a period specified in the contract; without a message from the customer or accompanying circumstances that make meeting it essential to them, however, the grace period still applies. How a court assesses a particular case depends on these circumstances and cannot be answered across the board.
The consequences of termination are simple: the benefits received must be returned (Section 346(1) BGB). The customer gets the money back, and if the goods still arrive, they go back to the shop; how to organize returns and reduce them overall is covered in the article on reducing online shop returns. Unlike damages, which are excluded if the seller is not responsible for the breach of duty (Section 280(1) BGB), termination under the wording of Section 323 BGB does not depend on fault. The two do not exclude each other, because the right to claim damages is not excluded by termination (Section 325 BGB). And the customer can terminate even before the date if it is obvious that the conditions for termination will be met (Section 323(4) BGB), for example when the shop itself announces that the goods will only arrive in January.
With a calendar date, default comes on top. If a time for performance is set by the calendar, the seller is in default without a reminder (Section 286(2) no. 1 BGB), unless performance fails because of a circumstance the seller is not responsible for (Section 286(4) BGB). In sales to consumers, the transport risk generally stays with the shop: the risk of accidental loss only passes to the buyer on handover to the carrier if the buyer commissioned the carrier and the seller had not named that carrier beforehand (Section 475(2) BGB). A parcel that disappears in a sorting center on December 22 is therefore the shop’s problem, not the customer’s.
Setting the order cut-off per shipping method
The figures of the German Retail Federation show how much depends on these weeks: for November and December 2025, it expected online retail to reach Christmas revenue of €22.2 billion (HDE), and retail as a whole earns 18.5 percent (HDE) of its annual revenue in the last two months of the year. A promise only holds if the order cut-off is right, and there is no single cut-off for the whole shop, but one per shipping method. The calculation runs backward from the delivery day: transit time of the shipping method, processing time in the warehouse and a buffer for peak days. In 2026, Christmas Eve falls on a Thursday, December 19 and 20 are a weekend, and December 25 and 26 are public holidays. A shop that does not ship on Saturdays only has Monday to Wednesday after that weekend for processing and delivery.
| Shipping method | Order cut-off (example value) | Calculation behind it |
|---|---|---|
| Bulky goods and freight | Friday, Dec 11, 12 noon | longer transit time, appointment with the recipient, buffer for the delivery notice |
| Standard shipping | Friday, Dec 18, 12 noon | dispatch on the same day, transit until Wednesday, one business day of buffer |
| Express shipping | Tuesday, Dec 22, 12 noon | dispatch on the same day, delivery the next day, one business day of buffer |
| Shipping to other EU countries | a separate date per country | factor in transit times and public holidays of the destination country |
The dates in the table are example values. What counts are the transit times the shop’s own carrier publishes for the season and the actual performance of the shop’s own warehouse on peak days. A shop that had a backlog on the last standard shipping day last year sets the cut-off one day earlier. A shop that also offers customers extended returns into January aligns both dates; how that works is explained in the article on extended Christmas returns.
The order cut-off has to be visible where the purchase decision is made: on the product page next to availability and delivery time, in the cart and in checkout per shipping method, in the order confirmation and on a separate page listing all dates, linked from the home page and banners. After the cut-off, the line must switch automatically, for example from “Delivered by Dec 24” to “Estimated delivery from Dec 28.” A promise that still appears on the product page on December 19, although standard shipping can no longer make the date, is an untrue statement about the time of delivery and can therefore be misleading (Section 5(2) no. 1 UWG). How to keep checkout lean overall is covered in the article on reducing cart abandonment.
In Shopware, delivery times are created as separate entries with a unit, minimum and maximum and assigned to a shipping method or a product; the delivery time on the product overrides the one on the shipping method (Shopware documentation). If enabled, the cart shows a date range calculated from the current date; for products without stock, the restock time is added, and the feature is inactive by default (Shopware documentation). In the calculation examples in the documentation, a delivery time of 1 to 3 days on 01/01/2020 results in the range 01/02/2020 to 01/04/2020 (Shopware documentation), which includes a Saturday. Before the season, it is therefore worth testing with the December calendar: does the cart still show a date before December 24 on Friday afternoon, although the cut-off was at 12 noon? Does it count weekends and holidays the way the warehouse works? A fixed order cut-off also belongs in the shop as text or as a rule.
- Set a date with a time of day per shipping method and destination country, for example “Friday, Dec 18, 12 noon.”
- Feed the product page, cart, checkout and date overview page from the same source so the same date appears everywhere.
- Switch automatically at the cut-off: promise off, estimated delivery date on.
- Exclude items without stock, pre-order items and goods shipped directly by the supplier from the promise.
- Add the promised delivery date or the estimated range to the order confirmation and the shipping email.
- Give customer service the same dates and a reply template for delays.
Pre-orders, partial deliveries and supply shortages
Pre-order items fit poorly under a blanket Christmas promise. In Shopware, the release date determines from when a product is available in the shop. It only serves as information for the customer, and the product can still be purchased (Shopware documentation). If the release date is after the order cut-off, the Christmas line must not appear for that item. A shop that accepts pre-orders states the expected delivery date of the item itself, not a seasonal date.
Mixed orders become tricky when one part is in stock and another is not. The seller is not entitled to make partial performance (Section 266 BGB). Anyone who wants to deliver in parts agrees on it, ideally as an option in checkout. For the customer, the reverse applies: if the seller has rendered partial performance, the customer can only terminate the whole contract if they have no interest in the partial performance (Section 323(5) BGB). With a gift set whose main item is missing, that can be exactly the case. For the right of withdrawal, where several goods are ordered in a single order and delivered separately, what counts is receipt of the last item (Section 356(2) no. 1 BGB); the withdrawal period only starts with the last parcel.
Standard terms and conditions have limits too. A term by which the shop reserves unreasonably long or insufficiently specific periods for performance is invalid (Section 308 no. 1 BGB). A reservation allowing the shop to withdraw from the contract if the goods are unavailable requires the shop to commit to informing the customer without undue delay and refunding payments without undue delay (Section 308 no. 8 BGB). And a clause that excludes or limits the customer’s right to withdraw from the contract after a breach of duty the shop is responsible for, other than a defect in the goods, is also invalid (Section 309 no. 8(a) BGB). A clause declaring all delivery dates non-binding across the board will therefore hardly rescue a promise made on the product page.
When time runs short: handling an impending delay
A delivery date rarely slips overnight. The warning signs are a stock error, a late delivery from a supplier, a backlog in the warehouse or a notice from the carrier about longer transit times. From that moment, every day counts, because an early and specific message gives the customer time to make other plans. Without it, the customer finds out about the delay at the front door on December 24.
- Stop the promise: remove affected items and shipping methods from the Christmas line at once so that no new orders are placed against a date that can no longer be met.
- Identify the affected orders and inform customers of the realistic new date by email and, where available, in the customer account.
- Offer a choice: express shipping at the shop’s expense, partial delivery of the items in stock with the customer’s consent, or cancellation with an immediate refund.
- If the customer declares termination, refund the payment promptly and arrange the return of any parcel already shipped.
- Document the case: promise, order time, shipping method, handover to the carrier and customer communication, so that later questions can be settled from the data.
An early offer also makes legal sense. If it is obvious that the date cannot be met, the customer can terminate even before the date (Section 323(4) BGB). A shop that gets in first with a solution is more likely to keep the order. For refunds, the Consumer Rights Directive provides that upon termination the trader reimburses all sums paid under the contract without undue delay (Directive 2011/83/EU). A shop that needs days to refund in this situation loses not only the order but often the customer as well.
Goods from someone else’s warehouse
Wording for product page, cart and order confirmation
A notice stays a notice if it is phrased as an expectation and states its basis. A promise becomes reliable if its conditions are right next to it and not in a footnote. Both options are permissible as long as they are true. The following wordings are examples to adapt to your shop together with your legal adviser:
- Notice on the product page: “Estimated delivery time 2 to 4 business days. For delivery before Christmas, we recommend ordering by Friday, Dec 18.”
- Promise on the product page: “Delivered by Thursday, Dec 24, if ordered by Friday, Dec 18, 12 noon, with standard shipping within Germany.”
- In checkout per shipping method: “Express: delivered by Dec 24 if ordered by Tuesday, Dec 22, 12 noon.”
- After the cut-off: “Estimated delivery from Monday, Dec 28.”
- In the order confirmation: “Your order will be delivered by standard shipping by Thursday, Dec 24.” For a notice: “Estimated delivery: Dec 21 to 23.”
What the shop says must reappear in the confirmation. The order confirmation reflects the content of the contract (Section 312f(2) BGB) and, in a dispute, is the first document customer and shop will produce. If it shows a different date from the product page or none at all, the discussion about which statement applies begins. Email templates, shop texts and customer service reply templates therefore belong on one shared list that is switched in one go at the cut-off. How the copy and design of the product page affect the purchase decision overall is part of our conversion optimization.
Schedule up to the last shipping day
- Early November: decide between notice and promise, set the order cut-off per shipping method and destination country, agree on the wording with your legal adviser.
- Mid-November: set up delivery times, banners, the date overview page and email templates in the shop and test them with orders placed before and after the cut-off.
- Before Black Week: check stock levels of promotional items and supplier lead times, and tie promotions with a Christmas promise to items in stock only.
- From early December: check the warehouse backlog and carrier notices every day, and bring the cut-off forward if needed.
- At every cut-off: switch the line, check the home page and banners, inform customer service.
- In January: review late parcels, terminations and inquiries and adjust the cut-off for the following year.
Black Week promotions follow their own rules, for example for strike-through prices; they are covered in the article on the 30-day rule for discounts. Anyone running ads during this period should plan budget and cut-off together so that no ad promotes Christmas delivery that the warehouse can no longer achieve; tips on this are in the article on Google Ads in Black Week. For Shopware stores, we set up delivery times, order cut-offs and email templates as part of our online shop services and handle the switch at each date as part of ongoing website care. For an assessment of your shop before the season, reach us via the contact page.
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