Vendor Compliance

Vendor compliance refers to the comprehensive rulebook each retailer publishes dictating how suppliers must prepare, ship, label, and deliver goods to their facilities. These requirements – often compiled in a vendor compliance guide or routing guide – cover everything from pallet configuration and case labeling to ASN timing, appointment scheduling, carrier selection, and delivery window adherence. Every major retailer maintains its own program, and the rules differ enough that a shipment perfectly compliant for Target may violate Walmart's requirements.

Typical vendor compliance requirements include shipping within designated windows, using retailer-approved carriers or following their collect freight routing guide, sending accurate ASNs via EDI within specified timeframes, applying GS1-128 labels with correct SSCC codes, meeting OTIF thresholds, scheduling delivery appointments through the retailer's system, and delivering with complete, accurate documentation. Some retailers also mandate specific pallet types, load configurations, or temperature monitoring for perishables.

Non-compliance triggers chargebacks – direct deductions from supplier payments that can range from a few hundred dollars per violation to percentage-based penalties on the full PO value. For mid-market CPG shippers selling into multiple retail channels, compliance management is a significant operational burden. Each retailer's rules must be understood, tracked, and operationalized across the shipping workflow, and the rules change periodically without much fanfare.

The shippers who manage compliance well tend to have systems that encode each retailer's requirements into their standard shipping workflow – so compliance is built into every load by default, not layered on as an afterthought. When labeling, documentation, carrier selection, and delivery timing are all governed by automated rules tied to the destination retailer, violations drop dramatically.