B2B Freight Requirements Guide

How B2B Freight Differs from DTC

B2B freight, meaning shipping product to retailer DCs, wholesaler warehouses, or business buyers, operates under a set of requirements that have no parallel in DTC shipping. When you ship a box to a consumer's home, the worst outcome of a compliance failure is a bad review. When you ship a pallet to a major retailer's DC outside its compliance specifications, the outcome is a chargeback: a financial penalty deducted from your invoice, sometimes before you've even invoiced for the shipment.

Understanding the requirements and building freight operations that consistently meet them is the difference between a profitable retail relationship and one that generates more penalties than profit. The requirements span freight execution, documentation, pallet configuration, and timing, and they must all work together to avoid the most common and costly chargeback triggers.

Dock Delivery Requirements for B2B Freight

B2B deliveries almost always require dock level access, a loading dock at the retailer's DC where a pallet jack or forklift can unload the truck. Unlike DTC delivery to a residential address, there is no liftgate option at a retailer DC unless explicitly specified. Arriving at a retailer DC without a dock height vehicle, or showing up at a dock without an appointment, results in a refused delivery that triggers penalties and a rescheduling delay that may push your shipment past its receiving window.

Inside delivery, meaning freight moved from the dock to a specific location within the facility, is sometimes required by smaller B2B customers without full dock infrastructure. This service level must be specified at booking and requires the right vehicle and driver capability. Warp's box truck fleet handles inside delivery requirements where standard dock drop is not available.

Pallet Configuration and Compliance Specs

Every major retailer publishes a vendor compliance guide that specifies how pallets must be built. Common requirements include:

Pallet dimensions: Most retailers require 48x40 GMA-grade pallets. Non-standard pallet sizes are a common chargeback trigger.
Height and weight limits: Maximum pallet heights (typically 60 to 72 inches including pallet) and weight limits (1,500 to 2,000 lbs) are strictly enforced at the DC scale.
Homogeneous vs. mixed pallets: Some retailers require single-SKU pallets for high-velocity items. Mixed pallets must meet specific layering and facing requirements.
Stretch wrap specification: Number of wrap layers, wrap starting point, and banding requirements vary by retailer. A poorly wrapped pallet that shifts in transit is a chargeback event.
Pallet labels: GS1-128 barcode labels placed on all four sides, positioned to the retailer's height specification. Missing or misplaced labels result in receiving delays and penalties.

Warp's cross-dock facilities build pallets to retailer-specific compliance specs as a standard service, ensuring that freight leaving Warp's network is compliant before it reaches the retailer's dock.

Advance Ship Notice and EDI Compliance

The advance ship notice (ASN), transmitted via EDI 856, is a pre-delivery notification that tells the retailer exactly what is arriving, on which pallet, in which configuration. Most major retailers require ASN transmission within hours of shipment departure, and many will not accept a delivery without a matched ASN on file.

EDI compliance is often thought of as an IT problem, but it's fundamentally a freight execution problem. The ASN can only be accurate if the freight has been correctly picked, packed, and palletized before transmission. A shipment where the physical pallet contents don't match the ASN creates a receiving exception that delays processing and triggers investigation chargebacks.

For brands building EDI compliance into their freight program for the first time, Warp's freight operations team can help map the ASN timeline to the freight departure window, ensuring that the EDI transmission happens at the right moment in the fulfillment process, not after the truck has already left.

Appointment Scheduling and On-Time Delivery

Retailer DCs operate on scheduled appointments, typically booked 48 to 72 hours in advance through a retailer's routing portal or third-party appointment system. Arriving outside the appointment window, whether early or late, results in a refused or delayed delivery. Some retailers charge a reschedule fee in addition to the on-time performance chargeback.

Our AI backbone, Orbit, tracks every active shipment against its appointment window in real time. For B2B freight with hard appointment requirements, Orbit's alerting capability means Warp's operations team can intervene, rerouting or rescheduling, before a late delivery becomes a missed appointment. Across Warp's 1,400+ active lanes, the appointment reliability that B2B freight requires is built into the operating model, not managed as an exception.

Chargeback Risk and How to Avoid It

Chargebacks compound. A single shipment can trigger multiple chargebacks simultaneously: an ASN timing violation, a pallet label placement error, and a late delivery window are three separate penalties on the same truck. For brands with high retailer chargeback rates, the problem is almost always systemic. The freight execution process has gaps that show up consistently across shipments.

The most effective way to reduce chargeback risk is to audit each component of B2B freight execution against the retailer's compliance guide, identify where failures are occurring most often, and fix the process at the source. Warp's per-pallet pricing for warehouse-to-store delivery includes compliance support for the freight execution layer, covering pallet build, label placement, and appointment coordination, reducing the most common chargeback triggers without requiring brands to overhaul their internal fulfillment operations.

Inside Delivery vs. Dock Drop for B2B

Not all B2B deliveries end at the dock. Some B2B buyers, particularly smaller retailers, office accounts, or specialty stores, require inside delivery: freight moved from the vehicle into the facility and placed in a designated area. This service level requires the right vehicle (a cargo van or box truck with liftgate, not a 53-foot trailer), driver capability, and additional time per stop that must be factored into routing and scheduling.

Warp's vehicle mix handles both dock drop and inside delivery for B2B pallet delivery, with service level selection at booking. For brands with a mix of dock capable and non-dock B2B accounts, Warp's network can serve both without requiring separate carrier relationships for each delivery type.