The huge majority of customer "concerns" we have had this Christmas have been customers who have assumed by selecting a premium shipping option will over ride delays we have put in place for external stock.
This is despite the messaging on the product detail page, the checkout - including near the shipping options AND the confirmation email.
So this means that what is in place simply is not clear enough for some customers, and we we are not talking just the odd customer here and there.
So I think it would be good if there was the option to hide any premium shipping when an item does not contain a stocked item.
I can hear the counter arguements now, but in my view customer expectations being met (regardless of whether they read warning messages or not) exceeds all other arguements, and reduces workload in customer service and poor experiences.
And as I am sure that most savvy retailers on here will send a delayed item as quickly as possible when it arrives, it puts as back in control of under promising and over delivering, improving customer retention.
The new checkout has/will have better messaging, but thats trying to work around the issue that customers still dont always see messaging, and you can put flashing lights on it and they sometimes still wont - so stemming the issue at the source makes sense to me?