Some quilt shop web sites have a small questionaire toward the end of the order form, " Send what you have, Im stash building" etc. and a few more questions, If you don't answer one of these, and they have to short your order, you are not notifyied. I always put in a message somewhere to let me know if they are short something I ordered.

My view of this situation is that if the shop is short on a fabric, they should always contact the buyer before shipping the order.

It could be that the fabric in question is required, in order to use the remaining ordered fabrics, or a lesser amount is ok (or not), or the buyer would like to make a substitution of a different fabric.

Good customer service includes the fact that the customer should never have unpleasant surprises when they open the package...

I recently placed an online order with Joann's for batting that they had on sale. 3 items were cancelled as they were out of stock - guess their back in stock now at full price

Haven't had anything cancelled without an explanation. But I did have a well-known online shop send me only 1/2 yard of a striped border fabric when I ordered 2. The 1/2 yard was pretty useless to me, even as an addition to my stash. I had a company contact me when they were 1/8 yard short of the amount I ordered. I call that good customer service. Since I'd ordered a little extra the amount they had was OK.

I used a gift card and placed an order and waited for over 3 weeks for my order and one day a letter from them arrived with a check for the amount of the gift card made out to me. No note, no explanation, no nothing. What was that all about?????

I ordered from over in USA and had a call explaining they could not fill all the order and offered subtitles .

There are times when they simply run out of fabric. Keep in mind, they are filling thousands of orders, not just yours. The order was not cancelled, they were not able to fill it.
Come on quilters, its just fabric, not life and death here. Theres always another fabric that can be substituded, or the fabric can be found somewhere else. I have ordered online, and not received all the fabric I ordered. I simply found another fabric to use in my quilt.
Lifes too short to make a mountain out of this.

rather than wait for the fabric shop to cancel a certain part of my order, i put in the comment area that if a certain fabric is not available from a list that i have made, i want to cancel the others (or the entire order). so far, i have been lucky enough that this has not happened. it has been quite some time since i ordered on line, but i will if i need a certain fabric. i would rather touch the fabric for which i am paying.

When I order online I always include a note stating to please call me if one of the fabrics is not available. I haven't had any problems doing this.