Note: FEFO is in the Beta testing phase and is only available to a selection of merchants at this time. If you are interested in participating in the Beta, please submit this form.
Deliverr is now offering First Expires First Out (FEFO) fulfillment to a select group of merchants. Now, Deliverr will send fresher products to your customers and help merchants avoid fulfilling expired products.
This is the first phase in Deliverr's Lot Tracking program, which will include two phases:
Phase 1 First Expires First Out Fulfillment: Fulfill based on expiration date. Older products are shipped to customers first in order to avoid fulfilling expired products and to increase customer satisfaction.
Phase 2 Order-Level Lot Tracking for Recall Management:
Track Lot numbers from inbound to order fulfillment. In the event of a recall, Deliverr can:
1. Remove or dispose of inventory for a specific Lot Number
2. Provide a report detailing the orders associated with a Lot number, giving merchants the information needed to communicate with your customers impacted by the recall.
Anticipated Beta launch date: July 5th.
What are the merchant requirements for FEFO?
1. All products must have an expiration date printed on the sellable units.
- This is so Deliverr can ensure accuracy of expiration date during the inbound receive process at the warehouse.
2. All cartons in a FEFO shipping plan must be single SKU. Each SKU must have only one Expiration Date per shipping plan. There can be multiple SKUs in a single shipping plan, but each SKU must have one expiration date.
- This is to reduce the risk of inaccurate receiving and confusion downstream. For merchants who wish to inbound multiple Expiration Dates, you must create multiple shipping plans during the Beta phase.
How does FEFO work?
1. On the inventory detail page, merchants can enable a SKU for expiration date fulfillment. When a SKU is enabled for FEFO, Deliverr will inbound that SKU only to the warehouses with FEFO capability. There are warehouses with FEFO capability in every region of the U.S.
2. When creating a shipping plan for a SKU that is FEFO-enabled, you will see a new page requesting the expiration date format and the actual expiration date of the product. There are two options for date formats: mm/dd/yyyy and mm/yyyy.
Please ensure that you enter the expiration date exactly as printed on the product. Otherwise, you risk noncompliance during the receive process.
3. Once Deliverr receives the FEFO products, we will start fulfilling based on expiration date.
- During the Beta phase, we will fulfill strictly based on expiration date, meaning the oldest date will always be shipped out first.
- After Beta, we will fulfill based on a combination of expiration date, service level, and cost. In other words, our long-term FEFO solution will balance shipping products based on expiration date as well as minimizing costs.
4. The inventory detail page will show the status and inventory count broken down by expiration date.
5. Merchants can request to mark a specific batch of products as unavailable, and Deliverr will stop fulfilling this batch. Our Support team will handle this request and confirm once the batch is marked as unavailable in our system.
- Once our Support team marks the batch as unavailable, this inventory will appear in the Unavailable column.
6. Additionally, we offer merchants the ability to turn off FEFO fulfillment for a SKU at any time. Simply click to contact Support, and we will disable FEFO fulfillment for this SKU.
How much does FEFO cost?
There is no surcharge for FEFO fulfillment.
Note, there will be a surcharge for Order Level Lot Tracking for Recall Management (Phase 2). Pricing details have not been confirmed yet, but the surcharge will likely be in the $0.10-$0.15 per unit range.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can a SKU be both FEFO and Order-Level Lot Tracked?
Yes, SKUs can be both FEFO and order-level lot tracked. Merchants will need to enable both capabilities for each SKU on the product detail page.
2. Will lot numbers and expiration dates be included in the Deliverr API?
Yes, we're are planning to add expiration date and lot number to our public API. We know that sellers need to manage inventory by expiration date and lot number in their ERPs. We will provide an estimated timeline once we have more details.
3. Does Deliverr plan to offer First in First Out (FIFO) fulfillment?
FIFO is fulfillment based on the date the product was received into the network (rather than expiration date). We do not have plans to build a FIFO solution in 2022. If this is a capability your business needs, please reach out to support@deliverr.com with your suggestion.
4. What happens to a FEFO product that is returned?
At this time, our returns feature does not have awareness of expiration dates. This means, if a product is returned and placed back into inventory, we cannot guarantee that this product will be fulfilled FEFO.
5. Can Deliverr track serial numbers?
No, Deliverr cannot track serial numbers at at this time
6. Will FEFO negatively impact Fast Tags?
Deliverr will aim to distribute expiration date batches across the five regions in order to avoid any negative impact to Fast Tags. However, if a batch of products is located in some regions and not others during Beta, there could be an effect on Fast Tags.