How Are Products Sent to Warehouse?

One of the services offered by a third-party logistics (3PL) company is general warehousing wherein they own or lease their own storage and transportation. They store, ship, and handle returns of your web store or online sales channel. Here is how you send your products to the warehouse:

1.       Check the Receiving Guidelines of the Warehouse

Before sending products to your chosen outsourced 3P Logistics warehouse provider, make you sure you have followed all the necessary receiving guidelines to ensure a smooth receiving process. This is also essential to prevent unnecessary damage, decrease shipment errors, and avoid non-compliant inbound shipment fines and delays.

If you are importing products internationally, it is crucial to note that as a merchant, you must be responsible for clearing customs and securing taxes and duties on inventory. When the products arrive in the warehouse, they must be free and clear of customs, taxes, and duties.

2.       Transportation of Products to Warehouse

The most common way of sending products to a warehouse is via large containers, which are usually 20-to-40-feet in size. Inside the containers, products are packed in boxes with or without pallets.

• Pallets: Pallet load quantities are usually shipped to the warehouse through less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping carriers.
• Cartons/Boxes: When quantities are much lesser, cartons or packing boxes are generally used. These cartons are shipped via small shipping carriers (FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc.). Products may also be sent through an expedited air freight when there is an urgent need to send the product to the warehouse.

The containers may be packed “floor loaded” wherein all the boxes are placed inside the containers without pallets to accommodate as many boxes as much as possible. The only downside to this method is that its relatively costly since the warehouse may take long to process the receiving of the container. There’s also another option to make the container “pallet loaded” wherein boxes are stacked and wrapped on pallets when placed inside the container.

3.       Identification of Products

Product identification is a crucial step in accurately receiving your shipped products into the warehouse. Items can be distributed to an incorrect SKU without an appropriate product identification, leading to wrong picks of orders and discrepancies in inventories.

Writing labels or adding more details to your shipped cartons can help assist the warehouse staff in accurately and quickly processing the shipment and inventory of your products. For instance, if the boxes are labeled with their corresponding SKUs and states the quantities and brief product descriptions, the warehouse staff will have more knowledge to receive the products properly.

4.       Inspection of Products

Upon the arrival of your products, quantifying them is the primary step in the receiving process. Counts may be in the form of high-level carton counts or individually counting the smaller inner carton within each master cartoon. There are instances that each box is opened and contents are inspected and verified. Items are also quality checked for any damage.

If you’re aiming to have your eCommerce business evolve and grow even further, you might want to start working with a 3PL provider. When choosing the best 3PL company, consider looking into their capability, flexibility, scalability, and innovativeness.