Building Customer Trust Around Pre-Orders: A UK Retailer's Guide

When customers buy something before it's in stock, they're placing trust in your brand. Pre-order regulations require eCommerce retailers in the United Kingdom to honor that trust.

Several consumer protection laws create a regulatory framework that applies to all pre-orders — including physical goods, digital content, and services. Together, they set standards around pricing, refunds, messaging, and delivery.

These laws are meant to benefit the customer. They also benefit your brand. How?

Pre-order regulations allow you to build trust with customers.

How pre-order regulations help put shoppers at ease

Most eCommerce retailers have traditionally waited for stock to arrive at the warehouses before selling. It's been difficult to do pre-orders with easy operations, in a compliant way that shoppers trust. Pre-orders give you the freedom to sell anytime, whether or not items are in stock. Customers love that flexibility too. They don’t even mind waiting, as long as they know what to expect.

Purple Dot data shows that 70% of pre-order shoppers place another pre-order again within three months.

Still, many customers are wary of pre-orders. They may worry about customer service nightmares or impossible cancellations. Pre-order regulations were created for their protection. And Purple Dot's pre-commerce platform makes compliance easy, which makes it easy for brands to build trust by doing right by their pre-order customers. You can notify customers of a delay with a single click. Because funds are held in escrow until they’re ready to ship, they’re always available for full refunds. 

Breaking down UK pre-order regulations and requirements

In the UK, pre-order regulations are a bit more thorough than those in the U.S. Enforced by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and local Trading Standards offices, regulations include:

• Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 (CCR): Covers online and distance selling, including the rights to clear information, cancellation, and timely delivery
• Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA): Ensures products are delivered as described, fit for purpose, and of satisfactory quality
• Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs): Prohibits misleading claims, aggressive marketing, and hidden fees

Here’s a breakdown of how those pre-order regulations apply (and how Purple Dot has you covered).

1. Pre-contract information requirements

Under the CCR, brands must always provide specific details before taking any payment. One of those is an estimated delivery date or delivery window. Purple Dot makes this very easy by displaying the dates for you in all the importance places: product and checkout pages, emails, and our self-service pre-order portal.

2. Delivery timelines and refunds

Pre-orders must be delivered within the timeframe you set and updated accordingly. Purple Dot will send you reminders to help you meet the dates, automatically let customers know if there's a delay, and provide you reports on how well you're doing.

3. Deposits and partial payments

Regulations apply to all pre-orders, regardless of how much the customer paid upfront. Purple Dot allows you to charge 100%, 50%, 10%, or 0% upfront while still remaining fully compliant.

4. Accurate messaging and misleading claims

CPRs require that pre-orders be marketed clearly and honestly. It’s illegal to:

• Mislead customers about availability or delivery timelines
• Use high-pressure tactics like false urgency or limited-stock claims
• Hide extra charges until the final step of checkout, also known as “drip pricing”

With Purple Dot, everything will be clearly marked and you definitely won't be drip pricing.

How Purple Dot helps with pre-order regulations

In our experience, the vast majority of brands act in their customers’ best interest. Of course you want to give shoppers a good faith estimated shipping date. It’s just that brands don’t always know how to translate their customer-first values into pre-order experiences — or they don’t have the tools to easily create or scale them.

By making compliance easy, Purple Dot helps you build trust, which keeps customers coming back again and again. Selling regular in-stock items, the average eCommerce retailer has a customer satisfaction score of 78%. Meanwhile, the average score for Purple Dot's pre-order merchants is a whopping 84%.

Want to learn more about how you can sell more by selling earlier (in a compliant way, of course)? Get in touch at hello@getpurpledot.com.

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