The question arrives with a photo of a pallet sitting at a dock: the goods are there, the appointment was booked, and the warehouse will not take them. Almost every case we see comes back to six things, and all six are cheaper to fix at the factory than at the destination.

One case, anonymised

A seller sent three pallets to a US fulfilment centre. Two were refused on arrival: the carton labels carried last season's format, and one carton weighed 26 kg against a limit of 22.7 kg. The third pallet was accepted, which made it worse — half the shipment was now in stock and half was in a warehouse waiting for relabelling.

The six things that fail

  1. Label version. Marketplaces revise carton and pallet label formats. A label that passed last year can fail this year; check the current version the week you print, not the week you ordered.
  2. Box weight and size. The US standard is commonly 22.7 kg per carton and 63.5 cm on the longest side. Over that, you need an overweight label, or the carton goes back.
  3. Mixed cartons. Several SKUs in one carton need to be declared as mixed and marked accordingly; otherwise the receiving team cannot scan them into inventory.
  4. Appointment and window. A delivery without a confirmed appointment, or outside the window, is turned away. This is the one that hurts most, because the truck has already been paid for.
  5. Sealing and packing. Flaps sealed with a single strip, cartons that bulge, loose inner boxes — all reasons to reject a pallet as unstable.
  6. Scannability. A barcode wrinkled over an edge, covered by tape, or printed at an angle is a rejected carton in practice, even if the rules were followed on paper.

The list to run before the truck leaves

  • Label file downloaded this month, and the version number written on the job sheet
  • Every carton weighed; over-limit cartons split or labelled
  • Mixed cartons marked, and the packing list matches the carton count
  • Appointment confirmed with the ISA or delivery window in writing
  • H-taping on top and bottom, no loose inner boxes, pallet wrapped and stable
  • One photo per pallet, and one close-up of a label, sent to you before dispatch

If it has already gone wrong

Ask the overseas warehouse for a receiving report with photos before you re-ship. Relabelling and re-palletising at destination is normal work; a second appointment is usually available within a few days. What you cannot recover is the storage clock that starts while you decide.

Send us the label file, the carton dimensions and the appointment confirmation before the first leg is booked. We will check them against the current requirement and tell you what to fix at the factory, while fixing is still cheap.