Glossary
Fulfillment terms, in plain English
The words that turn up on a quote, in a retailer’s routing guide or halfway through an onboarding call — defined without the jargon that usually comes with them.
Two of these cause more confusion than the rest put together. Dimensional weight is why a light but bulky box costs what a heavy one costs. And the words order, line, pick and receipt are not standardized between warehouses, so two quotes using the same words can mean different things. Get the definitions in writing before you compare prices.
3PL (third-party logistics)
A company that stores your inventory and ships your orders for you. A 3PL holds the goods and does the work; a 4PL coordinates other providers and usually touches nothing. Read more.
ASN (advance ship notice)
An electronic message, EDI 856, telling a retailer exactly what is on a truck before it arrives. It has to fire when the trailer is sealed; a notice sent after the truck reaches the yard fails for every carton on the shipment. Read more.
Chargeback
A deduction a retailer takes off your invoice when a shipment breaks a rule in its vendor manual. It is assessed automatically at receiving, not negotiated, and nobody calls first. Read more.
Cycle count
Counting a portion of inventory on a rolling schedule rather than shutting down for a full physical count. The number worth asking about is the accuracy rate and what the denominator is.
Dimensional weight
Billable weight calculated from a package’s volume rather than what it actually weighs. Carriers charge the greater of the two, which is why a light but bulky box costs the same as a heavy one. Read more.
Disposition
What happens to a returned unit: back to sellable stock, quarantined, repaired, liquidated or destroyed. Your rules, applied by the warehouse.
Dock-to-stock
How long it takes a received unit to become sellable inventory. A fast receiving fee means nothing if it then sits on the dock for a week.
DTC (direct-to-consumer)
Orders shipped one at a time to individual customers, as opposed to B2B or retail freight going to a distribution center. Read more.
EDI
The electronic message formats retailers use to trade documents: 850 purchase order, 855 acknowledgment, 856 advance ship notice, 810 invoice. Without it you cannot ship retail-compliant freight. Read more.
FEFO / FIFO
First expired, first out, and first in, first out. FEFO matters for food and supplements, where the oldest dated stock should leave first rather than simply the oldest received. Read more.
FNSKU
The barcode Amazon assigns to a specific seller’s version of a product, applied during prep so the unit is tracked to your account rather than pooled. Read more.
GS1-128
The carton label standard retailers scan at receiving, carrying an 18-digit serial shipping container code that ties a physical carton to a line on the advance ship notice. Read more.
Kitting
Assembling several items into one sellable unit: a bundle, a starter kit, a subscription box, a retail display. Priced on the labor it takes, which is why the instructions matter more than the component count. Read more.
Lot number
A code identifying a production batch, used to trace product back through the supply chain in a recall. Capturing it on outbound orders is a separate capability from simply storing it. Read more.
LTL (less than truckload)
Freight too big for a parcel carrier and too small for a dedicated trailer, consolidated with other shippers’ goods. How most retail purchase orders move.
ORM-D / limited quantity
A classification for small consumer quantities of hazardous material, such as aerosols, that can move under reduced requirements. Not every warehouse will take it. Read more.
OTIF
On time in full. A retailer scorecard metric combining whether a shipment arrived inside its delivery window and whether it arrived complete. Early counts as a miss. Read more.
Pallet position
A rack space holding one standard pallet, and the usual unit of storage billing. Forty SKUs is rarely forty pallets, because slow movers belong in bins rather than in a pallet space that is mostly air. Read more.
Pick and pack
Retrieving the items on an order and packing them for shipment. Normally billed as a fee for the first item plus a smaller fee for each additional one. Read more.
Receiving
Unloading inbound freight, checking it against the packing list and putting it away. At Minimus, palletized receiving is free; floor-loaded freight carries an hourly rate to palletize it. Read more.
Routing guide
The retailer’s rule book for how freight reaches it: which carrier, which window, how pallets are built, what labels go where. Every clause in it is a rule you agreed to. Read more.
Safety stock
Extra inventory held to absorb demand swings and supplier delays. It is the hidden cost of splitting inventory across two warehouses, because you hold it twice. Read more.
SKU
One distinct sellable item. A shirt in four colors and six sizes is twenty-four SKUs, not one, which is why apparel is a SKU-count problem before it is a volume problem. Read more.
Tie and high
How a pallet is built: tie is the number of cases per layer, high is the number of layers. The right case count in the wrong arrangement is still a defect. Read more.
WMS (warehouse management system)
The software running the warehouse floor. Worth asking whether you get a login to something standard or have to learn a portal the provider built and you cannot take with you. Read more.
Zone
A carrier’s measure of distance from origin to destination. Higher zone means a longer trip, a higher price and a slower delivery for identical work. Read more.
Still not sure what a line on your quote means?
Send it over. We will tell you what each line is actually charging for, including on quotes that are not ours.