Would you split an order that won't be fully ready before the holiday?
If most of an order can ship now and the rest will miss the cutoff, how do you decide whether a partial shipment is worth it?
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9 replies
- Look at usable stock, not just the percentage complete. Ninety percent of a kit doesn't help if the missing item prevents every kit from being sold.
- I'd compare the extra shipment cost with the shortage it actually prevents. Include the second set of handling and clearance charges, not only freight. Suppose the ready cartons cover the best-selling sizes but the late ones are slow movers. Shipping the ready stock could be quite useful. If every customer order needs one item from the missing batch, though, the first shipment may just sit in the warehouse looking busy.
- Check the customer's receiving rules before splitting. Some will happily take partials; others create a fresh appointment and paperwork problem for each delivery.
- Keep carton counts and invoice quantities specific to each shipment. A full-order packing list attached to a partial load is asking for confusion.
- If the remaining quantity is tiny, ask whether it can travel with the next regular order. That can be more sensible than treating every leftover carton as an emergency.
- I'd hold the supplier to an actual date for the balance. 'After the holiday' isn't a production plan you can give to sales.
- A partial shipment can also spread risk, which is useful when the ready stock covers essential items. Just make the commercial reason explicit so finance can see why there are two bills.
- Don't overlook packaging changes. Pulling cartons out of a planned container may change pallet stability, labeling and the final space requirement.
- My deciding question would be: what can the business do with this first delivery that it cannot do without it? If the answer is nothing, I'd hesitate to split.
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