Glossary of Terms

Glossary of Warehousing, Fulfillment & Logistics Terms

These are some terms, acronyms, and abbreviations you may run into at www.stalco.ca or in your search for a Canadian warehouse. These definitions are based on our collective understanding and experience in warehousing, fulfillment & logistics. These are not definitive descriptions, and feel free to contact us if you have suggestions or would like further explanation. We can be reached at: info@stalco.ca

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3PL (Third-Party Logistics)

— describes businesses that provide one or many of a logistics services. Types of services would include order fulfillment, warehousing, transportation management, logistics optimization, eCommerce order fulfillment or freight consolidation. A 3PL provider deals with the back end supply chain shipping for their customers. A 3PL can manage receiving, storage, shipping, pick/pack functions for their clients within the 3PL’s warehouse. Any and all of these functions can be managed by a 3PL.

ASN (Advanced Shipment Notification)

—An ASN is what is sent to a recipient (usually a mass retailer) when using EDI. An ASN is used to notify a customer of an impending shipment. ASNs include: Purchase Order (PO) number, SKU number/s, UPC, quantity, and usually a carton number. This electronic data transmission allows recipients to know when to expect orders so they can time the arrival of inbound goods. This helps the recipient plan staff for receiving goods and to ensure product is in store by a specified date.

Available

—just means, the inventory that is available to be picked, packed and shipped. Inventory that is already committed to an order is not displayed. Also known as inventory on hand or stock on hand.

Backhaul

—after a delivery has been made, drivers often look for loads of freight they can pick up so they are driving “empty” kilometres/miles. Side note, the term fronthaul is seldom used.

Backorder

—when an order can not be fulfilled due to insufficient inventory on hand, a back order is placed in the warehouse management system. The order can not be fulfilled until new inventory arrives in the warehouse.

Batch picking

—the order picker picks a batch of orders at the same time. Often having open boxes or a divider on a cart, the order picker moves to each item location and can fill more than one box at a time.

Blind counts

—when performing an inventory count, you do not provide the workers counting stock with any current quantities from the Warehouse Management System (WMS).

Blind shipment

—also known as a blind load or a blind drop ship. A blind shipment is a type of drop shipment where the source of the shipper is usually obscured from the customer. See: Drop Shipment

Bonded Warehouse

—a warehouse facility or a dedicated portion of a warehouse facility in which imported products are warehoused prior to taxes and duties being paid. Bonded warehousing facilities are often used to postpone the payment of import fees until the products are sold and shipped to a customer. Bonded warehouses are licensed by the Canadian government. If shipping eCommerce orders to US consumers, a superior alternative to using a bonded warehouse facility is to use Stalco’s Duty Drawback solution to completely eliminate duties on eCommerce orders for US consumers. See: Duty Drawback.

Break-Bulk

—can be applied to domestic shipments but the term break-bulk is more commonly used to describe international shipments where the goods being shipped consist of smaller units (individual cartons, boxes, postage bags, etc.) that have to be handled individually at some point in the shipping process.

Bulk

—the use of the term Bulk in an eCommerce fulfillment center refers to a case storage area as “bulk”, while a case-picking retail operation may refer to the full-pallet area as the “bulk area”.

Case

—describes a unit of measure (UOM) and the way multiple physical units are packaged together. A case would typically be a sealed carton (cardboard-box) where a standardized quantity (greater than one) of a specific item is packed. Retailers typically order in case quantities while individual consumers order in unit quantity.