What Is an ASN? Advance Shipping Notice for 3PLs
An advance shipping notice tells your 3PL what stock is arriving and when. Learn what to put in an ASN and how errors turn into surprise charges.
An advance shipping notice, or ASN, is a message you send your 3PL before stock arrives. It says what is coming, how much, in which cartons or pallets, and on which day. The warehouse uses it to book the dock, plan the labour and check your delivery against what you said you would send. Without one, stock can wait outside the system for days, and the first charge many brands see from a 3PL is the one for dealing with a delivery nobody expected.
It is a boring form. It also decides how quickly your stock becomes sellable, so it is worth getting right.
What an ASN contains
Providers use different portals and templates, but the core information is the same:
Your name and the supplier or sender
Expected delivery date and, where required, a booked delivery slot
Carrier name and tracking or consignment number
Every SKU, with the quantity you are sending
Number of cartons or pallets, with weights and dimensions
Units per carton, and how cartons are packed (single SKU or mixed)
Batch numbers and best-before dates if you sell food, cosmetics or anything with a shelf life
A purchase order or reference number you can match to your own records
If the stock is coming from overseas, add the customs details your provider asks for. Our guide to landed cost covers what an import adds to the price of each unit.
Why wrong or missing paperwork costs money
Receiving is planned work. A warehouse schedules the people and space it needs based on the notices it has. When a delivery does not match, someone has to stop and sort it out. Providers vary in what they charge, so check your rate card, but these are the usual causes of extra lines on a first invoice:
No ASN or an unbooked delivery. Some warehouses refuse it or charge for handling it outside the plan.
Quantities that do not match. Counting and reconciling a delivery takes time, and you are billed for it.
Unlabelled or mislabelled cartons. Relabelling is manual work per carton or per unit.
Mixed cartons. A carton with several SKUs inside takes longer to receive than a single SKU carton.
Late or missed slots. The team has been booked for a time that passed, and rebooking may cost you.
Missing batch or date information. Stock may be held until it is sorted.
None of these is dramatic, but they add up, and they delay the day your stock goes live in your shop. Our guides to hidden fulfilment costs and pick and pack pricing show the other places surprises appear.
How to send a clean ASN
Ask for the provider's inbound rules in writing. Carton limits, pallet height, labelling format, delivery days and notice period.
Check your product data first. SKU names and barcodes must match what the warehouse has loaded. If your products have no proper barcodes yet, sort that before the first delivery.
Send the ASN before the goods leave. Do it when the shipment is booked, not when the driver is on the road.
Label every carton and pallet. Put the reference, SKU and quantity where the provider asks for them.
Keep one SKU per carton where you can. It speeds up receiving.
Send the tracking number. The team can see when the delivery is due.
Compare the receiving report with your ASN. Query any difference on the day, with photos if goods are damaged.
Your first inbound delivery
The first delivery is where a new relationship is tested. Send a smaller shipment first if you can, so any problem shows up on a few cartons and not on a full pallet. Our guide to the first 30 days with a new 3PL shows where the first inbound fits in the onboarding plan, and how ecommerce fulfilment works explains what happens to the stock once it is inside.
Questions to ask your 3PL about inbound
How much notice do you need before a delivery?
Do you accept deliveries without a booked slot, and what does that cost?
What are your carton and pallet labelling rules?
How quickly after arrival is stock counted and available to sell?
What is charged for receiving, relabelling and discrepancies?
How and when do I get the receiving report?
Our 20 questions to ask a 3PL includes the pricing questions that go alongside these.
People Also Ask
What is an ASN in logistics?
An ASN, or advance shipping notice, is a message from a sender to a receiver listing what is being shipped, in what quantities and when it will arrive. A warehouse uses it to plan receiving and to check the delivery against what was promised.
Do I need an ASN to send stock to a 3PL?
Most providers expect one, and some will not accept a delivery without it. Ask for the inbound rules before your first shipment.
What happens if my delivery does not match the ASN?
The warehouse records the difference and may charge for the extra work. Stock can also be held until the discrepancy is sorted, which delays when you can sell it.
Finding the right 3PL partner
FulfilQ's advisor, Logan, matches brands to verified providers by order volume, product type and region. Tell Logan what you ship and where it goes, then ask each shortlisted provider for its inbound rules before you decide. Start at fulfilq.com or browse the full provider directory.
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