Note: Lot Tracking 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 does not assume responsibility for the accuracy or compliance of recall management. Please see the "Compliance responsibility" section below.
What are FEFO and Lot Tracking?
First Expires First Out Fulfillment:
Fulfillment based on expiration date. Older products are shipped to customers first in order to avoid fulfilling old or expired products and to increase customer satisfaction. Beta is live
Order-Level Lot Tracking for Recall Management:
Track Lot number batches from inbound to order fulfillment. In the event of a recall:
1. Remove or dispose of inventory for a specific Lot Number
2. View the orders associated with a Lot number. This will help facilitate direct communication with customers impacted by a recall.
Anticipated Beta launch date: July 18th.
Why are FEFO and Lot Tracking important?
1. Industry trends
In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a plan to increase food safety, which includes a focus on:
- Tech-enabled traceability
- Smarter tools for prevention and outbreak response
- New business models and retail modernization
- Food safety culture
The FDA’s 2020 guidance for the food industry specifies that in the event of a recall, merchants should supply a list of customers who received the recalled LOT. Traceability and optimized recall management are important components the Food & Beverage ecommerce supply chain.
2. Customer experience
It would be a poor customer experience to receive expired or about to expire products. In order to to ship fresher products to their customers, merchants can enable fulfillment based on expiration date for their SKUs. This will enable fulfillment of older products first.
Additionally, with Lot Tracking, merchants can identify the orders containing a Lot impacted by a recall and provide direct communication to customers. This could help merchants earn trust with their customers.
First Expires First Out Fulfillment
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. We will validate the expiration date of the physical unit against the expiration date entered in Seller Portal during shipping plan creation.
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 and proximity to customer. In other words, our long-term FEFO solution will balance shipping products based on expiration date as well as minimizing shipping costs 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.
Note: In the future marking a batch as unavailable and disabling FEFO will be self-serve.
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.
Lot Tracking for Recall Management
What are merchant requirements for Lot Tracking?
1. In order to ensure accuracy of Lot Tracking for Recall Management, products must have a scannable Lot Number barcode and must display the Lot Number on each sellable unit.
- If a product does not have a scannable Lot Number barcode on each unit, Deliverr cannot guarantee the accuracy of Lot traceability throughout the warehouse from inventory receive to order fulfillment.
- If a merchant still wishes to proceed with Lot Tracking without scannable barcodes, Deliverr can execute Lot Tracking only if Lot Numbers are printed on each sellable unit and visible during the inbound receive process.
- There will be an additional surcharge of $0.10/unit for Lot Tracking of products that do not have scannable Lot barcodes. This is to account for the additional operational processes that warehouses will need to follow in order to track Lot number from receive to order fulfillment manually.
- Even with these operational processes in place, Deliverr cannot guarantee the accuracy of Lot traceability, and merchants will assume the risk of removing or disposing units from the wrong Lot in the event of a recall.
2. All cartons in a Lot Tracking shipping plan must be single SKU. Each SKU must have only one Lot Number per shipping plan. There can be multiple SKUs in a single shipping plan, but each SKU must have one Lot Number.
- This is to reduce the risk of inaccurate receiving and confusion downstream. For merchants who wish to inbound multiple Lot Numbers, you must create multiple shipping plans during the Beta phase.
How does Lot Tracking work?
1. On the inventory detail page, merchants can enable a SKU for Lot Tracking. When a SKU is enabled for Lot Tracking, Deliverr will inbound that SKU only to warehouses with Lot Tracking capability. There are warehouses with Lot Tracking capability in every region of the U.S.
2. When creating a shipping plan for a SKU that is enabled for Lot tracking, you will see a new page requesting the Lot Number of the product you're inbounding.
Please ensure that you enter the Lot Number exactly as printed on the product.
3. The inventory detail page will show the status and inventory count broken down by Lot Number. Note: if your SKUs are also enabled for FEFO, you will see both expiration date and Lot number.
4. 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.
5. In the event of a recall, merchants can reach out to our Support team to request a report of all orders shipped to customers with containing the lot number impacted by the recall. This will allow merchants to provide more proactive communication to customers and manage recalls more effectively.
6. Additionally, we offer merchants the ability to turn off Lot Tracking for a SKU at any time. Simply click to contact Support, and we will disable Lot Tracking for this SKU.
How much does Lot Tracking cost?
There is a surcharge for Lot Tracking of $0.10/unit for products without scannable Lot Number barcodes.
Compliance responsibility
NOTE: The information provided on this page is intended to provide general description of the FEFO/ Lot tracking program at Deliverr. It remains the customer's obligation to comply with any product recalls, and inform Deliverr of any special handling or compliance requirements regarding the products it provides to the network. Deliverr, does not assume compliance responsibility regarding recalls and any information provided in the FEFO or lot tracking service offerings is informational in nature only Deliverr makes no representations or warranties of accuracy in any information provided. The specific service levels vary by merchant.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Does FEFO and Lot Tracking apply to existing inventory in the Deliverr network?
No, FEFO and Lot Tracking will only apply to inbounds that are created after FEFO and/or Lot Tracking are enabled for a SKU.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. What happens to a FEFO or Lot Tracked product that is returned?
At this time, our returns feature does not have awareness of expiration dates or lot numbers. This means, if a product is returned and placed back into inventory, we cannot guarantee that this product will be fulfilled FEFO.
6. Can Deliverr track serial numbers?
No, Deliverr cannot track serial numbers at at this time. This is not on our roadmap, but if serial number tracking is something your business needs, please reach out to support@deliverr.com
7. 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 coverage.
8. What barcode format does Deliverr require for Lot Numbers?
Code 128 and GS1-128 are the most common barcode formats. During the Beta phase, we will work with merchants to understand which formats you are currently using or which formats would be the easiest to implement.
9. Can Deliver do mock recalls?
This is not a common practice, but we can handle these requests on a case by case basis. There will be a fee to conduct a mock recall. Please reach out to your Deliverr rep if this is a requirement.