How B2B and wholesale fulfillment works with a 3PL, from EDI to chargebacks.

B2B and wholesale fulfillment means shipping to a retailer or a distributor instead of to a shopper: cases and pallets instead of a parcel, packed and labeled to the retailer's routing guide, delivered to a booked appointment, with the paperwork sent as EDI documents. A 3PL that does both runs the wholesale order from the same inventory as your Shopify, Amazon and TikTok Shop orders. Most chargebacks trace back to setup that was skipped before the first purchase order.

How a wholesale order differs from a DTC parcel

A DTC order is one shopper, a few units, a mailer and a carrier label. A wholesale order is a purchase order from a buyer, and the buyer sets the rules. Say a retailer's PO asks for 60 units of one SKU, packed 6 to a case, so 10 cases on one pallet. Those cases go to the retailer's distribution center on the carrier it chose, inside the PO's ship window, and the dock scans them against paperwork you sent ahead of the truck.

• The unit is a case pack, a fixed count of units in one carton with its own barcode, and on bigger orders a built pallet, wrapped and labeled, on a truck somebody has to book.
• The retailer's routing guide decides how the carton is packed, how the pallet is built, which carrier collects it and what every label says, and delivery runs to an appointment the distribution center books.
• Every carton and pallet carries a scannable label in the retailer's format, usually a GS1-128 label with a serial number the retailer's system already knows from the advance ship notice.
• When any of this is wrong, the retailer deducts a chargeback from what it pays you, and the warehouse that packed the pallet may never hear about it unless you pass it on.

What a routing guide is and what's in it

A routing guide is the retailer's rulebook for every shipment you send to its distribution centers. It lives on the vendor portal, and it changes whenever the retailer changes how its docks run. The chargeback schedule at the back is how the retailer enforces it, so read the current version before the first PO.

Expect sections on freight terms (collect, where the retailer books and pays the carrier, or prepaid, where you do), the ship window and cancel date on each PO, carton size and weight limits, whether a carton may hold mixed SKUs, pallet build (pallet type, height limit, no overhang, wrap), label specs and placement, the packing slip and where it's attached, when the advance ship notice is due, how to book a delivery appointment, and the chargeback for each mistake. Send the whole document to your 3PL and ask which items need something from you.

What EDI is, in plain words, and the documents a retailer expects

EDI stands for electronic data interchange, and it's a standard format for the documents two companies pass back and forth, so the retailer's system can write a purchase order that your system, your 3PL's or an EDI provider's reads without anyone retyping it. In US retail the standard is ANSI X12 and each document type has a number; the names below are from the X12 transaction set list, checked October 2026. The retailer's vendor guide says which ones it requires.

The ASN is where most of the trouble lives. It has to list every carton and pallet with the serial number printed on its label, in the structure the retailer specifies, and arrive before the truck. When the dock scans a pallet and finds no matching ASN, or the ASN says ten cases and the pallet holds nine, you get a chargeback even though the goods were fine.

Who runs EDI is a choice. Some brands connect their own ERP to the retailer and pass the pick request to the warehouse, and X12 has documents for that leg too, the 940 Warehouse Shipping Order and the 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice back (X12 transaction sets, checked October 2026). Others have the 3PL or an EDI provider connect straight to the retailer, so the PO lands in the WMS and the ASN leaves from it.

What a GS1-128 label is

GS1 is the standards body behind the barcodes retailers scan, and GS1-128 is its barcode for the levels above the single unit, the case and the pallet. GS1 US describes it as a barcode that can carry up to 48 characters, with application identifiers that tell the scanner what each piece of data is, so one barcode can hold a GTIN, a lot number, an expiration date or a serial shipping number (checked October 2026).

The label you'll hear about is the GS1 Logistic Label, which GS1 US says may be grouped into segments for the supplier, the customer and the carrier, with the barcode at the bottom encoding the Serial Shipping Container Code, or SSCC (GS1 US on GS1-128, checked October 2026). An SSCC is an 18-digit identifier for one logistics unit, a case or a pallet, built from an extension digit, a GS1 Company Prefix, a serial reference and a check digit (checked October 2026). The same number goes into the ASN, which is how the dock scan and the paperwork match.

How a 3PL runs DTC and B2B from one inventory

The first question founders ask is whether wholesale needs its own stock. It doesn't, as long as the warehouse management system counts in one pool and knows the case pack. Each SKU carries its unit barcode, its case barcode, the units per case and the cases per layer, so the same shelf position serves a single-unit Shopify order and a ten-case PO. When a PO comes in, the WMS reserves those units, so a strong TikTok Shop day can't eat the retailer's order, and the wholesale pick runs as its own wave, by the case, on the retailer's clock.

1. 01The PO arrives by EDI or email, gets acknowledged, and is checked against the routing guide for the ship window, the freight terms and the ship-to distribution center.
2. 02The WMS reserves the units against the PO, and if stock is short you decide whether to ship partial or wait.
3. 03The pick runs by the case, and any prep the guide asks for happens now: price tickets, poly bags, retailer-specific case labels, or a kit built from single units.
4. 04Each carton gets its GS1-128 label where the guide says, with the SSCC recorded against the PO, and the packing slip goes where the guide names.
5. 05The pallet is built to the guide, labeled on the sides it names and photographed before it's wrapped, then freight is booked, collect or prepaid as the PO says, and the appointment is requested.
6. 06The ASN goes out as the truck leaves, the invoice follows, and the count drops by the cases shipped, so your store and marketplace listings see the new number.

What to give the 3PL before the first wholesale order

The first PO goes well when the warehouse has had everything below well before it lands, with time to set up the items, test the labels and pass the EDI test cycle. Use it as the pre-first-order checklist; most of this is the same data you'd put together to send inventory to a 3PL in the first place.

• The retailer's current routing guide and vendor compliance manual, with its version date noted.
• Your vendor number, the retailer's item numbers for each SKU, and the address and hours of every distribution center on the program.
• Item setup for each SKU: unit GTIN, case GTIN, units per case, case dimensions and weight, cases per layer and layers per pallet.
• Whether the product arrives ready to ship or needs prep first, such as price tickets, poly bags, inserts or a case label, and who does that labor.
• The label specs from the guide, carton and pallet, with a sample of each printed and scanned at the warehouse before any live PO, plus the packing slip format and placement.
• A GS1 Company Prefix, yours or the warehouse's, for the SSCCs, and your UPCs loaded in the retailer's item file so a scan at the dock matches.
• The freight terms, any bill of lading rules, and the appointment rules: who books it, how far ahead, and on which portal.
• EDI setup: who connects to the retailer (you, the 3PL or an EDI provider), which documents are required, and the test cycle passed.
• The chargeback schedule, a contact at the retailer's vendor compliance desk, and the window for disputing a chargeback.

What a chargeback is and how to avoid the common ones

A chargeback is a deduction the retailer takes from your invoice payment, or a fee it bills you, for a shipment that broke a rule in its routing guide. The compliance schedule prices each one, usually as a flat amount per carton, per pallet or per PO, and it shows up on the remittance long after the shipment. These come up most, with what stops each.

• The ASN is late, missing, or doesn't match the pallet. Send it as the truck leaves, from the same data the labels came from, and check the carton count against it first.
• The label won't scan, sits on the wrong side, or carries a number the ASN doesn't know. Print and scan a sample before the first PO.
• The shipment leaves outside the window on the PO, or the truck misses its appointment. Put the ship window on the pick ticket, book the appointment as soon as the pallets are built, and confirm it the day before.
• The pallet is built wrong: overhang, over the height limit, mixed SKUs on a layer the guide wanted clean, or loose wrap. Build to the guide's diagram and keep the photo of every pallet.
• The quantity is short, the packing slip is missing, or the paperwork has no PO number. Scan every case against the PO at pack, and carry the PO number onto every label, slip and invoice from one record.

When a chargeback lands, pull the ASN, the label file, the pallet photo and the signed bill of lading, and dispute it inside the retailer's window. Those four things decide a dispute, so ask the warehouse to keep them for every PO.

How we run wholesale and B2B at YNK

Wholesale and retailer orders ship from the same building as your DTC orders, with EDI and vendor compliance audits available, and they draw from the same inventory pool as your Shopify, Amazon and TikTok Shop orders. There's one receiving, one count and one dashboard, so when a PO reserves 10 cases, the number your store sees is already right. Every unit is scanned onto the shelf and scanned again against the order before it ships, which is how pick and pack error stays under 0.3% across more than 1.2 million orders a year. A wholesale order runs on the retailer's ship window and appointment, so there's no noon cutoff on a pallet, and we book the freight for you.

Relabeling, price tickets, kit assembly and other prep a routing guide asks for are billed as special-project labor at $35 per hour, only when you ask for it. Receiving is billed by the hour. Storage is an estimated $0.65 per cubic foot per month on the space you use, packaging is billed as it's used, and there's no setup fee and no seasonal surcharge on handling or storage. DTC handling is an estimated $3.00 per order, and wholesale handling is priced in your quote from the case and pallet work the guide calls for. We confirm exact rates once we've seen your volume, what you ship and which retailers you're shipping to, and the terms are set per brand in the proposal.

To get wholesale priced alongside your DTC, send us the 3PL intake. It takes about ten minutes and asks for your SKU list, your channels and your last three months of shipments. Someone from the team replies within one business day, and the proposal follows within five. The rest of what we do is on the services page, and the 3PL page has the rate card.

Questions founders ask about wholesale and EDI