To avoid delays outright, we’ve found that it’s best to wait to add your merch to Bandcamp until you have a firm ship date and production lined up to meet that deadline. Fans get (understandably) antsy when a release date gets pushed further into the future, and you may wind up with more concerns from buyers in your inbox than you can handle.
That said, we understand that delays when producing and fulfilling physical merch can happen. To keep your fans updated about order delays, start by updating the “begins shipping on date” via the merch editor. This will manage any new buyers’ expectations about the delivery date for that item. For existing buyers who may not check the item page, it’s a good idea to notify them directly about the delay as well. The easiest way to notify all your buyers at once is to email them directly by exporting your sales report from your Tools page, then filtering by that item to find their email addresses. You can also email your mailing list, which you can export from your Tools page.