Routing guide compliance checked at pack-out, before the truck leaves.
If you run the warehouse that ships to these retailers, this page is for you, not for a brand shopping for a 3PL. Retail chargebacks rarely come from one big mistake. They come from the same small miss repeated: a label on the wrong side of the carton, a pallet a few inches too tall, an ASN sent after the truck left. Routing guide compliance is decided at the pack station, so that is where we build the checks, along with the photo record that answers the chargebacks that come anyway.
Example workflow. Not client work.
Why the same chargeback keeps coming back
Every large retailer publishes a routing guide: where the carton label goes, how tall and heavy a pallet may be, how it is wrapped, when the ASN (advance ship notice) must arrive and how the delivery appointment is booked. Break a rule and the retailer deducts a chargeback from what it pays your client, who then asks you why.
The guide is usually read by an account manager and passed to the floor as a printout or a memory. The packer building the pallet at the end of a shift has a dozen clients’ rules to keep straight and nothing that stops a pallet leaving when one is missed. When the chargeback arrives weeks later, nobody has a photo of what actually shipped.
What we would build
- Input. Each retailer's routing guide, turned with your account team into a checklist of rules the floor can test: label type and panel, pallet height and weight limits, carton weight, wrap and corner boards, ASN timing, appointment window. One checklist per retailer, with client-specific additions.
- Capture. At pack-out the packer scans the order and works through that retailer's checklist on the scanner or tablet they already use, entering the measured height and weight and taking photos of each side of the pallet and a close-up of the labels.
- Check. Each answer is tested against the rule. The system also checks what the floor cannot see: whether the ASN has gone out and whether the delivery appointment is booked for a window the carrier can make.
- Exception. A pallet that fails a check cannot be marked ready to ship. It goes back for rework, or to a supervisor who can release it with a written reason, which is recorded against the shipment.
- Record. Every shipment keeps its checklist, measurements, photos, times and names. When a chargeback arrives, your team pulls up the pallet as it left the dock and decides whether to dispute it.
How it fits beside your WMS
- Orders come from your WMS. We read the shipment, the retailer and the cartons from it through its API or export, so the packer is shown the right checklist without choosing it. What we can read depends on that system.
- ASN status comes from where it is sent. If ASNs go out through your WMS or an EDI (electronic data interchange) provider, we read the send status from it where it offers one. If they are sent by hand, the check asks the person who sends them.
- On the devices at the pack station. Checklists and photos run on your existing scanners, phones or tablets. We do not supply devices.
Where your team decides
Your account team decides what each routing guide means in practice and keeps the checklists current when a retailer changes its rules. A supervisor decides whether a pallet that fails a check ships anyway. Whether to dispute a chargeback, and with what evidence, stays with your team and your client. The retailer decides whether it reverses one.
Sample pack-out
Check a fictional pallet against a fictional routing guide.
Interactive simulation · sample data
A fictional client, Northline Apparel, shipping to a fictional retailer, Grand Market. Pick what the packer finds at pack-out.
Choose what happens
Pick one above. Nothing here is live: no call is placed, no message is sent and nothing is saved.
Questions
What triggers a retailer chargeback?
A rule in the routing guide that the shipment broke. The common ones are a carton label on the wrong panel or in the wrong format, a pallet over the height or weight limit, wrapping or corner boards that do not meet the spec, an ASN sent late or with the wrong carton detail, and a delivery appointment missed or booked outside the window. Each one is small, and each one repeats.
Can it read the routing guide for us?
We can help turn a guide into a checklist, and AI can draft one from the document. Reading rules out of a long supplier document is AI automation for logistics paperwork, and it is a draft, not an authority: a person on your team signs off on every rule before the floor uses it, because a wrong rule is worse than none.
Which retailers' routing guides can this cover?
Any guide your account team can turn into rules the floor can test. We do not ship a library of retailers, because the guides change and a stale rule blocks good pallets. We set up the ones you ship to during the build and hand you the screen where you change them.
Do we have to replace our WMS?
No. The checks run beside it at the pack station and read the order from it where it offers an API or export.
Will this stop every chargeback?
No. Some chargebacks come from things a warehouse does not control, such as a carrier missing the appointment. What it gives you is a check on what you do control, and a record of how each pallet left.
Who owns the software?
You own the code and the repository. The scope and a fixed quote are agreed before work starts.
Which chargeback do you see most often?
Tell us which retailers you ship to and which misses keep coming back. Someone from our team replies within one business day.