I don't know about the United States, but in Australia this practice is highly illegal - misleading and deceptive conduct under the Trade Practices Act. Selling items they don't have to keep the lights on may even be trading while insolvent (an accountant would know the answer to that one better).
Not quite what I meant but my wording was likely poor. The part regarding stopping selling was due to people having in the past suggested they stop taking orders all together.
In regards to selling items they do not have it is more complex than that. Due to the size of their business they probably do not pre-buy large amounts of stock and keep it in a back room like Amazon would. They likely get orders for certain hilts and make a order for the parts with possibly a few extra if it causes them to go over a mark which would give them a bulk buy discount.
As people have noted there are multiple parts to make one lightsaber and they could get 100 orders for the same hilt but with each one being different overall.
They'll make the order for the hilts and the machinist will make them. Now if the machinist has delays, for example they order the materials but they get delayed, or the machinist has less people working due to social distancing meaning not enough space/not enough money to pay all employees to work for example then all these lightsabers will get delayed.
Now as an example again of this, you email US for an update, they contact the machinist for an update who then contact their material supplier for an update and then you get your update, however as people have seen these updates change. Now this could be the machinist has got the supplies but found it's going to take longer for their work or the materials have been further delayed due to x or y. US now has to update the customer of this and because US is customer facing they will get the backlash and blame even if it is out of their control.
Now lets say the hilts get a timeframe and they come in, this doesn't mean all the other parts are there, even if they were at the start. If they are unsure when your hilt will come in but one of the items for your lightsaber they have is the missing piece to get another order out the door they are likely to do this because they want to get as many orders to their customers as possible.
This is why you get people with 20+ week waits and other shipping in under 2 weeks.
They are likely not saying the hilts are out of stock because to their knowledge they aren't, the machinist has them as available to make. As I noted the out of stock sabers are likely the ones which the machinist themselves have advised they cannot make for one reason or another.
First ... illegal? Lets stay away from making those kinds of inflammatory remarks. I think everyone can agree that US is doing their utmost to get everyone's orders out as quickly as possible.
And to that end, let me postulate a hypothetical, to hopefully illuminate just how complex this situation is.
Today, I go to the website and I decide I want to order a saber. I look, and after some internal struggle I finally decide on an Aeon V4 LE with Obsidian Lite, a lit AV, and a Consular Green Tri-Cree LED.
And I place my order. On the day I place my order, US just got a shipment of Aeon V4 LE hilts in, so there's a whole bin full of them....
....but there are also a lot of orders ahead of mine in the queue.
So, my order sits in queue for 2 weeks, and the day comes to assemble my saber. Yay! Except there's a problem. There are Aeon V4 LE hilts available, but the last shipment of lit AV switches in the color I ordered was short by 100 units due to issues with the supplier. The guys on the line check, there's another box coming in a week. So my order gets set aside for a week.
The week goes by, and about half-way through the week my order gets picked up again. This time there's an AV switch, and the the hilt ... but now there's no Obsidian Lite cards available. The shipment from the supplier that was due yesterday is late.
Again the order goes back into the queue.
Another week goes by. Then two. Then three. And the Obsidian Lite cards finally come in, a half-shipment, but better than nothing!
The hilt comes down the line again, gets to the assembly, and... No green Tri-Cree LEDs.
And now there's a quandary on the line, because they're running low on Aeon V4 LE blank hilts, which are also overdue from the machine shop. So the decision is made to use "my" hilt to fulfill another order, identical to it except it has a Guardian Blue LED. It goes out the door ... and my order goes back into the queue.
The customer who ordered the blue saber gets his saber in 9 days. He is very happy.
Three days later the Aeon V4 LE hilts come in, but now (again) there is a back-order on the Obsidian light cards. The manufacturer of these cards struggles to get their orders out, and finally gets it out 5 weeks later. They are over a month overdue.
All parts now in-hand, my order comes up in queue again and the saber is assembled and shipped.
I've waited 11 weeks for my saber, but it is finally on the way.
Now.... At what point did the Aeon V4 LE go out of stock? Even if US kept the website completely up-to-date on a daily basis on whether the green tri-cree LED, or the Obsidian Lite board, or the green lit AV switches were in-stock or not, it wouldn't have had any effect on my initial order.
These are CUSTOMIZED orders. They are built to-order, and there is some lag between the order placement and fulfillment. As I said before, there is no cure for this except patience. US customer service is doing their best to keep people informed when there are delays, but they're also a small specialty shop. Bear that in mind when you start wondering why they're not doing this or that.
Much better way of wording what I was trying to say, +1