This is disappointing and perhaps suggests that they were overwhelmed with demand or something, but they seem to be good people and will almost certainly do the right thing. This product wasn’t intended to meet a life-or-death deadline 
.
One thing that many people forget is that any sort of boutique store may involve looong wait times and communication delays. Small, online businesses are almost always working at the wrong scale and are either desperate to get rid of expensive inventory or swamped with orders they can’t fulfill. Their reaction to problems is what matters. In my opinion, such businesses should:
- Stop taking orders once it becomes apparent that there’s an issue with either fulfillment or satisfaction! This must be one of the first steps, yet most businesses see it as a last resort. I’ve seen this mistake made over and over again with boutique businesses run by good people and everyone suffers.
- Communicate, even if this involves mass e-mail to all customers or a notice banner on your website. Tell your customers the nature of the problem and a conservative estimate of when it will be resolved. If you expect to ship in a week, tell customers 1-2 weeks and then update them if that situation changes for the worse. Daily updates are overkill, but weekly updates are the minimum.
- Give bad news sooner than good news. If further problems seem likely, inform customers today. If solutions arise, inform customers only when absolutely certain or in-hand. As a corollary, do not make a perpetual string of excuses. You either have a plan and time estimate for resolving the issue or you don’t. Most customers will accept 1 excuse for a problem; any more will destroy your credibility. In such cases…
- Offer full refunds to any and all customers who don’t wish to wait for resolution. These customers are already unsatisfied, so it’s best to get them taken care of now rather than to have them getting angrier and angrier over time. Once angry, no resolution will be sufficient to calm them.
- Take a loss on shipping for orders that are already past due. If customers were told shipments would occur a week ago, spring for faster shipping. If that’s not practical, give the customer something extra; a show of appreciation like a free accessory or other reasonable, but valuable, token. If your business can’t afford to absorb this expense, you likely need to rethink your model.
Going silent, even if you are working 18-hour days in the background to fulfill orders and satisfy customers, will kill your business. Whatever else you do, keep communicating.