You've Landed a Retail Listing. Can Your Fulfilment Cope With a Purchase Order?

A retail listing brings purchase orders: orders for cartons or pallets, with a fixed delivery window, retailer-specific labels and electronic paperwork. A warehouse built for online parcels may handle none of that. Find out before the first order lands, because the delivery window starts when the retailer sends the order.

This guide lists what a retailer purchase order asks of your fulfilment, the questions to put to a 3PL, and the order to do things in.

The pain points

• The first purchase order arrives and nobody has priced pallet picking.

• The retailer wants its own carton and pallet labels, and your warehouse has never printed them.

• A delivery slot has to be booked, and a delivery that misses its slot can be refused.

• Retailers commonly apply charges for late, short or wrongly labelled deliveries. Read your supplier agreement.

• One large order takes the stock that your online customers were buying.

What a retail purchase order asks of your warehouse

• Pick in cartons or pallets, often in large quantities of a single product.

• Pack to the retailer's specification, including carton size, carton weight and whether cartons can mix products.

• Label every carton and pallet to the retailer's rules. Pallet labels commonly carry a GS1 serial shipping container code. Our guide to GS1 barcodes explains where product codes come in.

• Send an advance shipping notice, often through an electronic data interchange link or the retailer's supplier portal. Our guide to the advance shipping notice covers the basics.

• Book a delivery slot at the retailer's distribution centre and arrive inside it.

• Keep proof of delivery to support the invoice and any dispute.

Questions to ask a 3PL

• Do you ship retail orders and online orders from the same stock?

• Do you pick and wrap pallets, and how do you charge for it: per pallet, per carton or per line?

• Have you shipped to this retailer before, and can you work from its supplier guide?

• Can you connect to the retailer's electronic ordering and notice system?

• Who books the delivery slot, and how do you handle a missed one?

• How do you set stock aside for a purchase order so online sales cannot use it?

• Which pallet network do you use, and what are your cut-off times?

Our recommendation: prepare in this order

1. Ask the retailer for its supplier or routing guide before you speak to any provider.

2. Give every provider the same sample purchase order and ask for a price from receipt of stock to proof of delivery. Our guide to running a 3PL tender shows how to compare the answers.

3. Choose a provider that already ships to retailers.

4. Run a small test order before the first full purchase order.

5. Agree service levels and charge-backs in writing, and set stock aside for the order.

Our 20 questions to ask a 3PL covers the general questions that sit alongside these.

What waiting costs

Take an invented purchase order worth £15,000. If the warehouse needs two weeks to learn the labelling rules and the delivery window closes first, the pallets wait for a new slot and the invoice waits with them. A refused delivery adds transport costs and can add charges. Sorting out the routing guide and the labels before the order arrives gives the first delivery the best chance of going right.

People Also Ask

What is a retail purchase order?

It is a formal order from a retailer to a supplier. It lists the products, quantities, prices and delivery date, and it is usually followed by delivery rules that cover labels, packaging and booking a slot.

Can a 3PL that ships online orders fulfil retail orders?

Some can and some cannot. Ask whether the provider picks pallets, applies retailer labels, connects to retailer systems and books delivery slots, and ask for examples of retailers it already supplies.

What labels does a retailer need on a pallet?

Each retailer sets its own rules, and many ask for a pallet label with a serial shipping container code and details of the goods. Follow the supplier guide the retailer sends you.

Finding the right 3PL partner

FulfilQ's advisor, Logan, matches brands to verified providers by order volume, product type and region. Tell Logan you are supplying retailers, and you get a shortlist you can ask about pallets, labelling and delivery bookings. Start at fulfilq.com or browse the full provider directory.