Should Cisco licenses be pre-installed?

Been a while since I've been involved in the purchase and setup of new kit, so this could be a dumb question.

My department at work (generally non-technical) bought an ISR 4331 and performance license for an internal project, purchased from a Cisco distributor in Japan. The router arrived with an EVAL license installed, then we got a separate email from the distributor about adding/activating the real license in our Cisco smart account (which we don't have).

Does this seem normal for a router to ship with an EVAL license, then require the customer to screw around seting up the proper licence later? Seems strange to me, but I must admit I've never purchased an IOS XE device before.