Routing guide compliance and chargebacks
A department store or off-price chain does not argue with a vendor about a late or badly labeled shipment. It deducts. The rules behind those deductions are written down, in the routing guide and the vendor compliance manual, before the first order ships. Read them as a checklist, and most chargebacks never happen.
By Philip Radvan, founder. Updated . 7 minute read.
What a routing guide is
The routing guide tells a vendor how goods must travel to the retailer: which carrier or consolidator to use, who pays the freight, how to book a pickup or a delivery appointment, and which distribution center receives which order. It usually sits beside a vendor compliance manual that covers labels, packing and documents.
Both come from the retailer's vendor portal once you are set up, and both change. Keep a dated copy of each version, because a chargeback is judged against the rules in force when the order shipped.
Turn each account's rules into a checklist
Read the guide once, end to end, and write down only what your team must do differently for this account. A one-page checklist per account beats a hundred-page manual nobody opens.
- Ship window: the first and last day goods may leave, and what happens outside it.
- Freight terms and carrier: collect or prepaid, the named carrier or consolidator, how to book.
- Cartons: size and weight limits, units per carton, prepacks, flat or on hangers.
- Labels: the carton label format (often GS1-128) and where it goes on the carton.
- Documents: the advance ship notice, the packing list and the bill of lading, and when each is due.
- Tickets: who prints them, in what format, and where they go on the garment.
The chargebacks that come up most
Every retailer names its own, with its own amounts. The reasons repeat across accounts:
- Shipping late, or early, outside the ship window.
- A missing advance ship notice, or one that does not match the cartons that arrived.
- Carton labels that are missing, unreadable or in the wrong place.
- Cartons over the weight or size limit, or mixed styles in a carton meant to hold one.
- Using a carrier the routing guide did not name, or skipping the appointment.
- Missing or wrong tickets on the garments.
Prevent them upstream, not at the dock
Most chargebacks are decided weeks before the truck: the order ran late at the factory, the container slipped, and the goods reached your warehouse with two days left in the window. By then the choice is to ship late or ship in a hurry, and a hurried shipment is where label and carton errors come from.
So watch the production calendar against each order's ship window, and tell the buyer early when a date moves. A buyer told in advance can extend a window or split an order; a buyer told by the distribution center sends a deduction.
Track and dispute them
Record every deduction with its account, order, reason and amount, wherever your finance team works today. Once a month, sort by reason and fix the most common one first: it is usually one habit in one place.
Dispute the ones that are wrong, inside the retailer's dispute window, with proof: the bill of lading and carrier pickup confirmation for a timing claim, the advance ship notice and its acknowledgment for a document claim, a photo of the labeled carton for a label claim.
Where Garmiq fits
Garmiq does not track chargebacks and runs beside your EDI provider, which sends the advance ship notice. What it does is keep each order on time and visible from the factory to your warehouse, so the ship window is met before the dock has to rush.
- Time-and-action milestones per purchase order, with delay notifications to the owner of each step.
- Documents due by production stage, including packing lists safe to send to the warehouse.
- Live ocean container tracking, with ETA delay reasons sent to your warehouse, and a receiving portal for your 3PL.
More guides: How to track garment samples, Points of measure, a practical guide, The time and action calendar for garment production, Line sheets for department store buyers, Off-price vendor requirements, The sample request process with wholesale buyers.