Barcode and carton checks before sending stock to a marketplace

Goods sent to a marketplace warehouse are checked at the gate. The barcode is scanned, the carton may be opened or weighed, and the quantity is compared with the shipping plan. Where something does not match, the delivery can be held, accepted in part or accepted with a recorded shortage. By then the goods are out of your hands. The cheapest place to find a problem is your own warehouse, before the truck leaves.

Start with the platform's current rules

Every platform sets its own requirements for barcodes, carton labels, carton weight, mixing SKUs in one carton and packaging, and they change over time. Take the rules from your seller account or the platform's current instructions, copy the relevant points onto one page and write down the date you took them. This article is a way to check your shipment against those rules, not a replacement for them.

The checklist

1. Item to barcode. For each SKU, scan one piece and confirm that the barcode is the one registered in the listing for that SKU. Look closely at colour and size variants.
2. Barcode quality. The label is flat and clean, is not hidden under a glossy film that reflects light, and scans at the first attempt.
3. Quantity per carton. Count the pieces in a sample carton for each SKU. For small shipments or valuable items, count every carton.
4. Mixed cartons. If the platform requires one SKU per carton, check that this is true. If mixing is allowed, the carton must be marked as mixed.
5. Carton label. It shows the shipment number, the SKU and the quantity, and agrees with the shipping plan.
6. Totals. The scanned or counted totals per SKU agree with the shipping plan and with the packing list.
7. Evidence. Photograph the sealed pallet and the label side, and keep the scan file under the shipment number.

Record the shipment status in your books

Create a shipment document with its own number in 1C or your ERP. Until the marketplace confirms acceptance, treat the goods as "shipped, awaiting acceptance": neither sold nor part of the stock in your own warehouse. When the acceptance report arrives, compare accepted against shipped for each SKU, and look into every difference within a few days, while the people involved still remember what happened.

An example with numbers

Suppose the plan says 20 cartons of SKU B-0412 with 24 pieces each, 480 in all. The team opens five sample cartons: three hold 24 pieces and two hold 22. Because the sample shows a problem, they open the rest and find two more short cartons. In total four cartons hold 22 pieces and sixteen hold 24, so the shipment is 472 pieces, and the record is corrected before dispatch.

Had 480 gone out unchecked, the marketplace would have logged a shortage of 8 pieces, your books would still say 480 shipped, and eight pieces would sit in a dispute that nobody can settle. The check took twenty minutes and removed the dispute.

Slips that come back again and again

• Reusing old cartons whose labels still show another SKU.
• Printing a new label for a colour variant but leaving the old barcode visible on the product.
• Packing the last few pieces into a nearly empty carton without writing the quantity on it.
• Changing quantities after the plan was submitted without updating the plan.
• Sending goods that are still waiting for a recount or a return inspection, which makes the shipment record unreliable from the start.

Make it a routine

A checklist only works if somebody owns it. Name one person who signs the shipment before it leaves, and let the platform's acceptance report come back to that person, who follows up every difference. After a few shipments you will see which items cause trouble, for example always the same supplier's cartons or the same variants. Those become the first things to fix at receiving, so that problems are caught once and not again at every dispatch.

InventoryHub's e-commerce SKU reconciliation puts marketplace back-office stock, ERP records and physical stock side by side in one table. For the marketplace part we work in whatever way the platform permits, and may ask you to export its report.