eCommerce Inbound Receiving

This is Chapter 12 of 13 in our eBook on eCommerce Fulfillment for 3PL Warehouses. See the link below to download the full ebook.

Receiving product that will be used in eCommerce Fulfillment is often no different than traditional pallet in and pallet out warehousing. However, depending on the operation, there can be a few differences in process flow and opportunities for Value-Added Services to expedite fulfillment.

Receiving stock typically follows a normal receiving, sorting and putaway process. Various suppliers may establish EDI integrations for Advanced Receipt notices of inbound stock, others may transmit a simple email. Oftentimes, a warehouse must blindly receive a trailer with nothing more than a Bill of Lading from the truck driver.

Product may be neatly palletized and stretch wrapped, with full skids of a single SKU. Other times the pallets will be mixed with multiple SKUs grouped together. International containers may contain product in cartons that are floor loaded and strewn about haphazardly from their ocean voyage, with no palletization. Due to the variation, the inbound receipt process may vary considerably for each warehouse.

1. Upon unloading, products need to be sorted, identified either by visual means or via scanner, counted, and optionally labeled if labels are not already present.
2. During initial sorting and inspection, any stock that appears damaged or in poor condition should be set aside for further review. A work order process can optionally be established to inspection, repair, rework, refurbishment, repackaging, relabeling, or other value-added services.
3. Optionally, a notification during the receiving process can alert an operator if a product actively being received is currently backordered. A portion of that stock can then be split and immediately assigned to those backorders for immediate packing and shipping.
4. Additionally, if a pick aisle has a stock out, a replenishment notification can indicate a stock request for immediate replenishment to the pick aisle.
5. Otherwise, all remaining stock should be put away as regular stock in good condition.

System-Directed putaway can be used to assign destinations to products as they come in. Typically, fulfillment warehouses receive product into bulk storage locations first to avoid disrupting busy picking operations, unless a shortage requires immediate attention.

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