This page explains how a buyer's claim for a missed date is calculated and disputed, for a merchandiser or manager who receives one after a ship date has actually been missed. This lesson mainly teaches money: what a claim's own figure is built from, and which parts of it a factory can check against evidence rather than simply accept. Mona, the merchandiser at Delta Garments, must respond to Northline Apparel's claim once Order A's export run ships 3 days late despite the air freight recovery from lesson 6.2.
A person who has never seen a claim can treat any figure a buyer states as final, simply because the buyer is the one who was inconvenienced. A claim is not automatically correct just because it is stated with confidence; it is built from named costs, an air freight charge the buyer itself paid, lost retail sales, a discount given to keep a shop's order, each of which can be checked against evidence. Without knowing what a claim is built from, a factory risks paying more than the delay actually cost, or refusing to pay a cost that is genuinely proven.
You need: lesson 6.2 is useful background, since this lesson picks up once a recovery option has already been tried and the date was still missed, but it is not required.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: choosing a recovery option before a date is missed (lesson 6.2); a chargeback as a separate, unilateral deduction (lesson 6.4); negotiating a live delayed order across all four options together (lesson 6.5).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Claim | A buyer's request that the factory cover a stated cost the delay caused the buyer, such as an air-freight charge or lost retail sales, negotiated between the two sides. |
| Claim window | The agreed number of days after delivery in which a buyer may raise a fault or shortage before the order counts as accepted. |
| Chargeback | A cost the buyer deducts from what it pays the factory, to cover the buyer's own cost of fixing or replacing a failed shipment. |
| Air freight | Moving goods by aeroplane. Much faster and much more expensive per unit of weight than sea freight. |
| Letter of credit | A bank's own promise to pay the factory once it presents the documents an order's terms require, used on Order A's export sale to Northline Apparel. |
| Landed cost | The FOB price plus shipping and duty once goods reach the buyer's own country, USD 3.70 per piece on Order A. |
A buyer's claim for a missed date is a request, not an automatic deduction; it names specific costs the delay caused the buyer, and each named cost can be checked against evidence before a factory agrees to pay any of it. A claim differs from a chargeback in exactly this way, a chargeback in lesson 6.4 is a unilateral deduction the buyer simply takes, while a claim is negotiated between the two sides before any money changes hands. Checking a claim's own arithmetic and evidence, rather than accepting or rejecting it on the buyer's word alone, is what turns a dispute into a fair settlement.
| What can differ | The shapes you meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Export, Make to Order | Northline Apparel's claim on Order A names the extra air freight it paid to receive part of the order on time, an amount checked directly against a freight invoice. | An export claim's costs are often easiest to check, since a shipping invoice is a fixed, dated document either side can read. |
| Export, retail-linked cost | A claim can also name lost retail sales at Northline's own shops if the delay pushed part of the order past a marked selling season, a cost harder to prove than a freight invoice. | A cost without a clear, dated record is fair to question; the burden of showing the cost is real sits with the buyer making the claim. |
| Domestic, Make to Stock | A domestic buyer such as Cedar & Co. can also raise a claim, for example the cost of a promotional discount it had to give to move stock that arrived late for a planned event. | The same checking method applies to a domestic claim; the size and kind of cost may differ, but the discipline of checking it does not. |
| Hybrid or agent-mediated orders | An order placed through an agent such as Meridian Sourcing can see a claim raised by the agent on behalf of the buyer it represents, rather than the buyer contacting the factory directly. | Who raises the claim does not change what it must show; an agent's claim still needs the same named costs and evidence as a direct buyer's claim. |
Northline Apparel raises a claim on Delta Garments after Order A's export run ships 3 days late, despite the split shipment recovery option from lesson 6.2. Northline's claim states it paid an extra air freight charge itself, for the sea-freighted 7,500-piece portion, to bring some of those pieces forward once its own shops needed stock sooner than the split shipment's sea-freight leg would deliver. Mona, the merchandiser, asks Northline for the freight invoice before responding, rather than agreeing to the stated figure on its own.
The worked numberThis lesson's worked number checks a claim's own arithmetic against the order's known figures, rather than treating the claim's total as automatically correct.
A common mistake is paying a buyer's claim in full simply because refusing it feels like it would damage the relationship, without first checking the claim's own figures against evidence. As the worked number shows, even a claim built on a real cost, air freight actually paid, can contain a difference worth USD 600 on a single line once checked against the master rate, a gap that checking finds and paying on trust alone would not.
This trap costs a factory money on every claim it accepts without checking, not only on the specific difference found. A factory that always pays a claim's stated total, without asking for the invoice behind it, effectively invites every future claim to be rounded upward, since there is no cost to doing so from the buyer's side once the pattern is established.
When a buyer says a late delivery cost it money, that statement is the start of a conversation, not the end of one. The buyer should say exactly what the cost was, an extra freight bill it paid, sales it lost, a discount it had to give, and should be able to show something proving each one, like an invoice or a sales record. The factory should check that proof against what it already knows about its own order, rather than simply paying whatever number the buyer first states or refusing to pay anything at all. Most of the time, checking finds the claim is mostly right, with maybe a small difference worth asking about, and the two sides agree a fair final figure together.
Mona, the merchandiser at Delta Garments, receives Northline Apparel's claim after Order A's export run ships 3 days late. The facts in front of her:
The document Mona reads, Northline Apparel's own claim letter:
Should Mona agree to pay the USD 4,200 as stated, or ask for the freight invoice before responding? Decide before you open the answer.
She should ask for the freight invoice before responding, since the claimed figure does not match the expected cost calculated from Order A's own master air freight rate. Recalculating 2,000 pieces at USD 1.80 per piece gives USD 3,600, a USD 600 difference from the USD 4,200 claimed.
Two facts, together, decide this. First, the master figure for Order A's air freight cost is fixed and known, so Mona can check the claim's arithmetic without needing to guess at the true cost. Second, Northline has not yet provided the invoice that would explain the USD 600 difference, so asking for it is a specific, evidence-based question, not a refusal to pay.
Paying the full USD 4,200 without asking would cost Delta Garments USD 600 more than the master figure supports, and would leave no record of having checked the claim at all, inviting the next claim to be rounded upward the same way.
This lesson's cost is the gap checking finds against the gap trust alone would miss. On Northline Apparel's claim, checking the stated USD 4,200 against the master air freight rate finds a USD 600 difference, about 14% of the claimed amount, worth raising before payment. Across a year of claims on similar orders, accepting every claim's stated figure without checking could add several times this amount in unquestioned differences, money the factory's own profit margin, USD 0.26 per piece on Order A, cannot easily absorb.
Copy this row into the delay recovery decision guide's Decide sheet, using the claimed cost and the master figure you are checking it against.
| Check point | Spec says | Found (your entry) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claimed cost checked against the order's own master figures | Recalculate the claimed cost from the master figure and record the difference, if any |
Download the full working sheet, with Northline Apparel's air freight claim already checked and filled in, from the link on this course's page.
1. What is a buyer's claim for a missed date?
2. Northline Apparel's claim states USD 4,200 for air-freighting 2,000 pieces. Order A's master figure fixes the extra cost at USD 1.80 per piece. What should Mona do before paying?
3. A different buyer claims USD 6,000 for air-freighting 3,000 pieces where the master rate is USD 1.50 extra per piece. Is the claim higher or lower than expected, and by how much?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim | مطالبة | Réclamation | Talep | A buyer's request that the factory cover a stated cost the delay caused the buyer, such as an air-freight charge or lost retail sales, negotiated between the two sides. |
| Claim window | مهلة الشكوى | Délai de réclamation | Şikayet süresi | The agreed number of days after delivery in which a buyer may raise a fault or shortage before the order counts as accepted. |
| Chargeback | خصم استرداد | Retenue sur paiement | Ceza kesintisi | A cost the buyer deducts from what it pays the factory, to cover the buyer's own cost of fixing or replacing a failed shipment. |
| Air freight | الشحن الجوي | Fret aérien | Hava taşımacılığı | Moving goods by aeroplane. Much faster and much more expensive per unit of weight than sea freight. |
| Letter of credit | اعتماد مستندي | Lettre de crédit | Akreditif | A bank promise to pay the factory once the shipping documents match the order. |
| Landed cost | التكلفة بعد الوصول | Coût rendu | Teslim maliyeti | The FOB price plus shipping and duty once goods reach the buyer's own country, USD 3.70 per piece on Order A. |
You now know how a buyer's claim for a missed date is calculated and disputed. The next lesson tells a claim apart from a chargeback, using Cedar & Co.'s domestic order with Delta Garments. Back to the course map