Ecommerce warehousing services: receiving, stock and dispatch

What is the difference between warehousing and fulfillment?

Define the actual work you are buying: storage, inventory handling and order processing can have different boundaries.

Write down where the warehouse’s responsibility begins and ends. Does it receive individual units, cartons or pallets? Does it prepare customer orders, replenish another site, handle returns or only hold goods? Request a process description for your account so that the proposal can be compared with the work your team will still perform.

Use your product profile to identify the handling questions. Include dimensions, weights, packaging units and any requirements that need confirmation. A warehouse’s general marketing description does not establish suitability for every product. Ask the supplier to mark requirements as confirmed, conditional or unsupported before you plan inbound deliveries.

What should happen when stock arrives?

Agree how deliveries are booked, identified, counted and released, including damaged or unexpected goods.

Give the provider a representative inbound shipment with expected item identifiers and quantities. Ask how staff match what arrives to the advance information and record a short delivery, extra units or an unknown item. Clarify whether discrepancies are investigated before the stock becomes available to sell.

Keep arrival, receipt and availability separate in your operating plan. A vehicle reaching the site does not prove that the items have been counted and made usable. Agree who sees an unresolved receipt and who can approve a correction. Record receiving and storage charges using the same shipment assumptions across all proposals.

Which inventory states need to reach the store?

Distinguish physically present stock from sellable, allocated, blocked and incoming quantities.

Shopify’s inventory documentation separates quantities by state, including available, committed, unavailable and incoming. Use this as a product example when discussing your own stock model. The labels can differ across systems, so confirm the meaning and mapping rather than copying a total into the shop.

Reference: Shopify: inventory states

Ask the provider to show a unit received into inspection, later released for sale and then allocated to an order. Follow each change through the warehouse record and store. Add a unit that arrives damaged. Your test should make clear who can change its state and prevent it from entering the sellable balance prematurely.

How will stock counts and discrepancies be handled?

Agree a record of expected stock, counted stock, differences and approved corrections.

Ask how counting work fits around open orders and stock movements. If picking continues while a location is counted, the comparison needs a way to account for those movements. Otherwise a difference may reflect timing rather than missing goods. Request a practical demonstration of how the provider investigates one item with a mismatch.

Record the item, location, relevant times and supporting movements before approving a correction. Agree how the store is protected while a material discrepancy is unresolved. A stock adjustment can repair the displayed number without explaining the cause; retain the investigation so recurring receiving or picking errors can be recognised.

What should be tested before the warehouse takes live orders?

Test receiving, order handoff, exceptions and the ability to account for stock at exit.

Run a small representative flow from inbound receipt to a dispatched order and a return. Include a short pick and a cancellation request. Check that the store does not treat the first shipment as completion when an item remains outstanding. Record which actions are automatic and which need your team’s approval.

Before stock arrives, clarify notice, stock removal booking, final counts and usable data exports. Include the treatment of returns arriving after an exit. This is part of understanding the proposed service, even if you expect a long relationship. Use a separate migration plan when moving stock from an existing warehouse.