Late delivery compensation: assess a claim as a UK shop

Your customer accepts a parcel that arrived late, then asks you to pay a wasted appointment charge. Your support system offers a delivery refund, while the carrier says the service was only an estimate. Neither response answers the whole complaint. As a UK retailer, you need to identify the promise you made, the remedy being requested and the evidence for any additional loss. This article focuses on that compensation assessment for consumer goods orders.

Is compensation the same as refunding the order? #

No. Returning a payment made under the sales contract and compensating a separate loss perform different jobs. Section 28 sets out circumstances in which a consumer can treat the contract as ended after a delivery failure. Where that happens under the relevant provisions, you must reimburse payments without undue delay. Subsection 13 also preserves other remedies where available. Do not close every additional claim simply because your payment system already shows a purchase refund.

Start your internal assessment with separate lines for the purchase payment, any delivery payment, an additional loss claimed and any voluntary gesture. Label the reason for each proposed payment. A refund for goods that will never arrive is not automatically payment for a demonstrable wasted expense. Equally, a customer cannot turn one expense into several separate losses by giving it different names in successive emails. Your record should make the distinction visible.

A retailer may also advertise its own delivery promise with a specified benefit when it fails. That is a separate promise to examine on its actual terms. Do not copy another retailer’s daily credit scheme into your policy and describe it as the statutory rule. Check what your own checkout and confirmation offered for this purchase. A customer may be relying on that specific commitment rather than asking for a general payment for inconvenience.

Which delivery promise and breach are you assessing? #

Preserve the product-page message, selected service and order confirmation. Distinguish a promised arrival from a promised dispatch. Section 28 uses the agreed delivery time or period; without one, the Act requires delivery without undue delay and no more than thirty days after the contract was entered into. That fallback does not replace a shorter agreement. A carrier’s estimated transit window is evidence about the service you bought, but it is not the whole retail contract.

Check what the customer told you before purchase. For the delivery remedies in section 28, an essential agreed date can matter, including where its importance was communicated before the contract. Separately record later conversations and any genuinely agreed change. A new date displayed in tracking is not proof that the customer accepted a change to your contract. Keep the original promise available while you investigate where the delay happened.

What evidence supports a claim for additional loss? #

Business Companion, the Trading Standards guidance service, gives a concrete example in its explanation of delivery law: a consumer may be able to claim quantifiable wasted fitter labour caused by late kitchen parts. The lesson is to investigate an identifiable loss. Ask what was booked, what was paid, why the delay made it unusable and whether any amount was refunded or transferred. Keep the request proportionate to the expense being assessed.

Use an itemised schedule rather than an undifferentiated total. For each expense, put the claimed event beside its document and the explanation connecting it to your breach. A receipt may prove a payment but leave the connection to the late delivery unanswered. Conversely, a clear connection does not prove the amount. If a rescheduled appointment remains usable, record that fact rather than treating the original booking and the new booking as automatically separate losses.

For your own review, compare two versions of a hypothetical complaint without inventing prices. In the first, the customer supplies a paid invoice for a visit that could not proceed because the agreed goods were absent. In the second, the customer supplies only a calendar reminder for an appointment that was moved without charge. These are different evidential positions. Neither should receive a response generated solely from the number of days the parcel was late.

Establish the factual connection and seek case-specific legal assessment where liability or the recoverable extent is disputed. Avoid promising payment for every day spent at home, or rejecting every consequential expense as a category. Record what you knew at the time of sale, what actually happened and what expense remains. A precise explanation of an accepted or disputed item is more useful than a broad assurance that all losses are covered.

Can your terms exclude every loss caused by the courier? #

Section 31 of the Consumer Rights Act prevents contractual exclusion or restriction of liability arising under specified provisions, including sections 28 and 29 on delivery and risk. It also addresses restrictive conditions on remedies. A blanket statement that every courier problem is solely the customer’s responsibility is therefore not a sound substitute for assessing your obligations. Review the actual clause and the remedy at issue before relying on it in a refusal.

Your carrier’s contract remains relevant to your recovery from that carrier. It may distinguish a service aim from a guarantee, require particular evidence or use its own claim process. Preserve the booking as it stood when purchased. But do not tell the customer that they must first win your transport claim before you examine their retail complaint. Your customer and your chosen carrier are parties to different contractual relationships.

How do you prevent double recovery without blocking valid redress? #

Section 19 recognises other available remedies, including damages, while preventing recovery twice for the same loss. Give each assessed loss its own reference. If a delivery payment has already been refunded, show that payment when considering a request to reimburse the same delivery charge. Do not silently apply it to a different expense, such as a wasted appointment, without explaining why. The comparison must concern the same loss.

Send an itemised outcome: what has been refunded, what additional item is accepted or disputed, the reason and what evidence could change the assessment. Keep any goodwill offer in its own line. If you seek a settlement of disputed claims, make the proposed scope explicit and have it assessed appropriately. An automated credit message should not suggest that the customer has agreed to a broad settlement when no such agreement exists.

Where does replacement fulfilment fit in your calculation? #

Your own remedy costs need a separate ledger. In an illustrative AirPost workflow, one original dispatch and one actual replacement dispatch incur two platform fees. Using the fee constant checked on 14 October 2026, that component is €1.70, comprising €0.85 per dispatch. This is the euro-denominated platform component, not a sterling carrier quote or a full replacement cost. Add the real transport charges, agreed packing remuneration and materials separately.

This calculation helps you budget a proposed solution; it does not determine the customer’s compensation. Do not deduct your replacement handling from a required refund just because it appears on your ledger. Nor should you assume the carrier will reimburse every additional action you take. Keep the retail remedy, your actual operational spend and the transport recovery decision separate. Each needs its own basis and supporting record.

If you arrange local fulfilment through AirPost, agree how the sender records stock availability and actual carrier handover. That makes it easier to identify whether a delay happened before packing, before dispatch or during carriage. Use the shop’s lost or damaged parcel procedure for that transport file. For goods coming back, returns without a warehouse explains the separate receiving arrangement.