Excellent point. IME, billing upon shipment is the standard. The only time I've been billed so far in advance of shipping was with Alienware in 2000. They were

Excellent point. IME, billing upon shipment is the standard. The only time I've been billed so far in advance of shipping was with Alienware in 2000. They were still a small company, so they actually called us on the phone to ask if they could bill now and ship in 6 weeks when the machine was ready. It was an unorthodox request, but we agreed. However, if they had billed us 6 weeks before shipping without asking we would have raised Cain. That said, it is abundantly clear on your page that the item will not ship for 4-6 weeks.