Deep Dive: Walmart Shipping and Routing Transportation Guide

[00:00:00] Danielle: Today we are going to be doing a deep dive into Walmart's shipping and routing transportation guide. My name is Danielle Gloy. I will be monitoring the chat today. And then leading our content is Peter Spaulding. So we work on the SupplierWiki team. SupplierWiki is kind of like the educational arm of SupplyPike. 
 

So we help create free educational resources like eBooks, articles, and webinars. Our goal is to make content that is the most beneficial to you and that is ultimately going to set you up for success. So we're really happy that you all get to join us on this webinar today. All right, so let's see what we're going to get into for the agenda today. 
 

We will start off talking about how you can create a ship point. Then we'll move into tracking shipments. We will talk about Walmart shipping success metrics, and then we'll go over some routing, scheduling, and loading best practices. Before we wrap up the webinar with a live Q& A at the end with Peter and myself. 
 

So here are a few FAQs that we typically get during webinars. So first being, will we be getting a copy of the slide deck? Yes, absolutely. You can expect to see the PDF version of the slide deck as well as the recording of this webinar appear in your email inbox in about three to four business days. You can also find our webinar recordings on YouTube under SupplyPike or you can find them on the SupplierWiki website where you can download a variety of our slide decks.

And secondly, what is the best way to ask a question? So at the bottom of your screen, you'll see a little Q& A tab that has two little speech bubbles, and this is where we ask you to please submit any questions related to the content, as I'll be able to monitor them and then tee them up for Peter for the Q& A time at the end. 
 

Okay. So last thing before we get into the content, if you are new to our webinars or have never heard of SupplyPike, we create cloud based tools that help CPGs reduce revenue loss. So we do this in a lot of different ways and with multiple different retailers like Walmart, Target, Amazon, Home Depot, and Kroger. 
 

The list just keeps growing. And last thing I'll say here, we work with a lot of great suppliers. We have some of them up here today. And if you aren't currently working with us, we would love to see your brand's logo up here in the future. And with that, I will hand it over to Peter to get into today's content. 
 

[00:02:26] Peter: Thank you, Danielle. That was a wonderful introduction. And thank you all of us all of you for joining us. I'm excited to get into the shipping and routing transportation guide here a little bit. We're gonna be doing high level logistics. So talking a little bit about the nitty gritty of, of ship points and, and all of that, but really. 
 

The intention and the greater kind of design behind this conversation is to create kind of oversight into the whole, the, the, the whole process, how complicated the process is, and and of course, to help. Decision makers learn how to establish more of those best practices to really clean up the supply chain, which is our passion at SupplyPike. 
 

We love to talk about that. Everyone loves to talk about supply chains these days. It's a hot button issue, but we were doing it before it was cool. So there's all that. Okay. First of all just getting access to the guide. This webinar is not a replacement for the Shipping and Routing Transportation Guide. 
 

Really, it's more of a guide to the guide. Or a an introduction at a kind of higher level to what the guide is important for in terms of your supply chain performance, how it affects revenue loss or other sort of compliance performance metrics. So we'll be. Basically, integrating the Shipping and Routing Transportation Guide into a more holistic sort of supply chain narrative, if you will, at Walmart, but it's a retail link resource just like almost everything else that you can find in the Academy under Transportation Basics. 
 

So, that's really the route that you'll take to go look for that. As far as I know, it's not a document that they're updating with any kind of regularity yet, not like with the secondary packaging standards, which will be, which are updated pretty regularly on a roughly more or less annual or biannual basis. 
 

This one, it will update as there are changes to these apps, as there are changes to these processes. But as far as we know, it's not something that it's. Changing pretty regularly. If you've heard differently let us know. That's a really helpful information so we can update. Our content as well. 
 

But basically, what are we talking about today? We're talking about the transportation portal. We're talking about ship point creation, which is really the the first step. It's, it's an essential to all suppliers. But it's very important in that foundational kind of period. But, Looking at ShipPoint creation itself will also give us more insight into these other compliance programs, too. 
 

So what is the point of including all these details in the ShipPoint creation? Well, it's so that Walmart will have a better sense of X, Y, and Z, right? So we'll be talking about that a little bit. Not just to talk about how to do it but to talk about why it's done the way that it is, and then we'll also talk a little bit about the TSCP 2. 
 

0, the new or new ish Transportation Supply Chain Portal app. Okay, so creating a ship point this is done within the Transportation Portal and it's one of the first things that new suppliers will do. So this app is the only real place that you can do that and it is the primary way to communicate with the transportation team is our kind of shout out there too. 
 

So it's important with, with all of this to think about what are the fundamentals of what's going on here. It's really about communicating with the retailer, creating clear lines of communication and expectations. between the supplier, maybe a 3PL or a logistics team or something like that, and the retailer, so that everyone's on the same page about all of that. 
 

So other really important things that you do here in the transportation portal is you can request routing cancellation, super important, something that boots on the ground logistics teams and employees have to do regularly all the time. And then you can confirm shipment opportunities and deal with product overflow as well. 
 

So transportation portal is touches a lot of different areas, which is one of the reasons why we're talking about it. So to create an account, this is probably only going to be relevant for new suppliers. So I can move through this. If you are a new supplier, we're happy that you're here too. And this is for you. 
 

So this is hopefully relevant to you as well. So the link on the slide before navigates to a login landing page with a create account option. You put your name and your email in there. And in the request comments Here's all of the things that Walmart advises kind of putting in there. If you missed it before everyone's going to get a copy of the slide deck. 
 

So you can so you can download the slide deck in its entirety and have it on your desktop for reference later on as well. So we don't need to kind of go through all of of these details, but it is important to understand why, you know, Walmart requests some of this information. 
 

The user type, right, is really interesting. The grocery is kind of going to function in a completely different way from everything else. Most suppliers know that most of the people that we have on these webinars are CPG suppliers. So there isn't, there is some overlap, but there's not necessarily a ton of overlap between grocery and, and the regular kind of merchandise CPG GM space. 
 

So that's what Walmart is really trying to kind of figure out in that. with that user. What is your user type? What is it what specific kind of I guess we could say like genre of, of, of shipping are you going to be doing? That'll change the DCs that your products go to. It'll change all of that. 
 

So, which is of course super important for ship point creation. But to do that, and this is something that, of course, you'll have to do at the beginning whenever you're a new supplier, but that most suppliers have to do an update more or less constantly as they grow or as they shrink or as they change in any kind of way. 
 

All of this will have to change. So you need a contact name, email, phone number, and then freight profile for every ship point. That's really the, the essentials. Those are the basics. And for the select suppliers, you have to have a ship point number for each location. And that's to help Walmart differentiate all of that. 
 

So where do you do this? This is the transportation portal. It's under a ticket. So new ticket, if you're, if you're wondering what that's for new tickets can be made for other things as well, not just for ShipPoint creation, but if you're doing a new ShipPoint you're going to start there with the new ticket option, and and there's some more kind of essential information that Walmart needs in order to kind of set all that up. 
 

So if you're creating a new ship point that needs to go there in the RA subject line. That's important for Walmart to know. If you're creating a, or if you're, if you're editing an existing ship point, you'll go through a sort of similar process. I think we'll be covering that here in a little bit. 
 

So but it is important for Walmart to know whenever the, the This ticket type is a new ShipPoint creation or not. And then from the drop down, you can select ShipPoint request new slash update. So the difference, the key difference there between if you're editing one or updating one and, and, you know, Creating a new one entirely is in that title and subject line, the RA subject. 
 

But the ticket type will be the same for either one. And then shipping commodity, again, this is where you're differentiating between GM or grocery. And then the ship point request type is another place where you will clarify that this is a new ship point if that's what, if that's what you're doing. So a little bit more kind of granular detail about about the Number of palettes that will, that will fit on a truck. 
 

This is relevant to the ship point itself. And the requirements for individual ship points. But it's also just kind of helpful to give a little bit of insight into the logistics sort of perspective. Why cubing out is something that people are talking about all the time. Why, Efficiency is something that a lot of these companies are spending a ton of money on on having software do for them or something like that. 
 

SupplyPike's story is that we come out of KStack which is now part of HubGroup. But that's what KStack was doing, was really helping basically with logistics, consolidation LTL stuff. How do we make sure that people are being as efficient with their shipments as possible? Well, all of this is relevant to ShipPoint creation and ship points themselves because there are certain regulations that Walmart has for their trucks. So here's a little bit of a kind of a conversation about the number of pallets when you're when you're trying to fill a 53 foot truck. 26 pallets is a minimum. And this is just if you're not able to double stack, pinwheel, or or do the width wide load width wise load 28 palettes will fit if you are able to pinwheel but you can't double stack or load width wise, and then you can do 30. 
 

If you are able to load width wise but can't double stack. So all of these can be doubled, of course, if the palettes can be double stacked themselves. And then page 14 of the Shipping Routing Guide has a little bit more kind of graphic detail. for what all that is supposed to look like. It's a little bit of basics, but you can also check out the packaging information in the in the academy under the quick learning articles there. 
 

That'll help a little bit too. So as is the case with a lot of Walmart's learning, you sometimes have to aggregate. information from a number of sources. That's basically what we do. That's basically what these webinars are for, is to take information from a variety of sources and to try to bring it together to have a single source of truth or a little bit more of a of a bird's eye view on a particular thing. 
 

So whenever it comes to how you're going to load a truck for Walmart shipments, there's a bunch of different places that you go. Well, that's because there's a bunch of different ways of doing it on the one hand, but also Walmart is massive and Walmart has a lot of different regulations and the regulations, I think for the most part don't contradict each other. 
 

But sometimes there is outdated stuff that some people are, are, are holding on to as a regulation. Sometimes it's hard to make changes happen across the whole organization all at once whenever you have an update. So But yeah, that's to go back here just for a second that's the point there of that last bullet point is the Shipping and Routing Guide is really your good place to start, but there are other educational resources that will help with that too that Walmart is providing to get just to make sure that all of your bases are covered. 
 

So Shipping Hours is Another essential bit of information for any ship point the minimum requirement is eight eight shipping hours Monday to Friday for loading. It'll probably be more than that for all of you. But yeah, that's something that, again, you're going to want to, you're going to want to organize or you're going to want to plan out your shipping hours around MABDs around how much you're doing or how little. 
 

All of that is really important. So, so a lot of people will, again, they'll outsource some kind of some kind of software tool to, to help automate that as much as possible unless you're a smaller supplier and that can be done really on an individual level. All of that has a lot of variables in it as well. 
 

Ship point number. So these have to be requested. If the ship point request is approved, a ship point number will be issued automatically. So, a new ship point can begin shipping those POs 45 days after the number has been assigned. So take all that into consideration too whenever opening up a new ShipPoint or whenever getting started, you're getting started as a Walmart supplier there's still going to be that buffer period. 
 

And that buffer period is important for for planning everything out as well too, probably. Okay, so that's a little bit on ShipPoint creation at a high level. Now we're going to look a little bit into tracking shipments and this is done in the TSPC 2. 0. This 2. 0 is only a couple of years old now. 
 

I want to say it was maybe 2022 that they released it. Um, but you can learn about it. Their help articles are, are in the getting started, setting up your supply chain portion of the academy and then supplier transportation onboard training. So that's where Walmart will unpack through in, in retail links documents more about accessing TSPC 2.0 and getting the most out of it. So. What do you do in this app? What is the TSPC 2.0 for? Really checking routing status and then confirming and tracking shipments is that's basically all that you'll be doing there as a supplier. POs can be confirmed or submitted under the routing tools drop down on the left menu. 
 

And then Walmart recommends checking the routing status twice a day for updates. So again, that. It depends on your size. It depends on how many responsibilities an individual person in, on your logistics team is going to have, right? Some suppliers checking twice a day is not an issue at all. 
 

It's, it's more an issue of checking on that many shipments routing statuses twice a day. Some suppliers it's you're so small that you can't really afford to have someone just. You know, monitoring all of that. And it has to be kind of dealt with as problems come up. So take it with a grain of salt. 
 

It varies a lot from user to user. But if you need access to the TSPC 2. 0 you've, you're going to have to go back to that your RetailLink admin most likely to get access to the RetailLink user ID. which is a seven digit alphanumeric ID number. This can be found in the My Profile icon on the top right corner of the RetailLink home page under My User Account. 
 

So it should be under the Personal Information tab there, but if you can't find it using that method, then I would highly recommend sending this slide to your RetailLink admin to see if it shows up there. So on the RetailLink apps page the site administrator has to click on the Additional Access Request app and then you have to provide the exact user ID in the search bar, enter the above mentioned seven digit alphanumeric ID number, and then the RetailLink user ID and then click the search icon. 
 

So that's what your administrator needs to do there. 
 

And then on the right side of the screen, you can enter these exact access group ID codes for external supplier access. So it depends on it depends on what what this user will be using it for. But here are all the codes for the variety of different lines that they have. So you could have the TS TSCP 2.0 line more general, the US supplier, external line confirm shipment suppliers line, confirm shipment upload, external line, and then the LTL routing external line as well. So these will auto populate with the group name, allowed users, and country. As you go through once you put those codes in, so you won't need to put that information in more than once. 
 

Alright. It's like a little bit of load types. This should be review for a lot of you more high level logistics stuff. But again, it's helpful for, it's helpful for getting us a little bit of a picture of logistics at Walmart. Collect shipping and just the the logistics process. More or less all together. So the small package instructions, a little shout out. We won't be covering that here really just because on the one hand we assume that it's something that is a little bit more individually, right? Depending on the size and depending on the weight depending on the, the cause, the why of, of the small package shipping itself. 
 

So I recommend that's pages 69 through 72 on the PDF, or in the actual on the actual document itself. It might be a different page number depending on which PDF you're downloading. But pages 69 through 72 of the Shipping and Routing Guide will give a little bit more detail on on small package. 
 

So that's you can see that referred to as SMPKG or SSPO depending on the context. And it is a really well, it's a really important call out, I think, because Whenever we're talking about this process of whenever we get to a certain number, right? Let's say there's a certain number of net ships for a SMB supplier. 
 

At that point, everything becomes so complicated that. Small package has to be kind of dealt with on its own. So, but yeah, it's a little call out there. Read up on that to get a little bit of an appreciation for how detailed and technical the whole process has to be. But basically you've got TL or FTL. 
 

That's ideal in terms of simplicity, right? If you can, if you can do every if you can deal with all of your POs in TLs or FTLs that's great. Rail is just intermodal, but same thing, right? There are ways that you can break down rail into the equivalent of a rail LTL. And we won't be covering that in too much detail here as well, but those of you who are in logistics or who have a logistics background will know a lot more about that too. 
 

CP, consolidation loads or load desk type CP, as it's also kind of referred to. Is for shipments that are being consolidated either by a 3PL or by Walmart depending on the shipment type. Fleet is the term for truckload or full truckload that is assigned to the Walmart private fleet. 
 

It's collect and then LTL, less than truckload. That's really kind of the meat and potatoes of, of logistics, right? Is how do you make. How do you make shipping as, LTL is the like linchpin for making shipping as efficient as possible. Again, truckload FTL is ideal. That's really what you want to be able to do all the time, but as the world is full of CPGs of all sizes in terms of their SKUs, but also in terms of the individual size of the SKUs. 
 

It becomes more complicated. So LTL is a, is a necessary evil and same thing with consolidation. It's all just reacting to that, the the messiness of the reality that FTL is not what every shipment can look like for every supplier. So this we're covering is, this is stuff that we we talk about a lot. 
 

So if you have further questions about this, maybe you're just getting started and, and you've just heard rumors and whispers about OTIF and SQEP and you're not totally sure what that is. Let us know in the chat or in the Q& A and we can send in a lot more detailed stuff on these compliance programs. 
 

But this is basically the measurement of the supply chain efficiency that Walmart has in place. Every retailer has, you know, Compliance programs and they are all designed to measure the supply chain, to measure the success and the efficiency of the supply chain, but no one does it like Walmart. No one has as elaborate and detailed sets of separate compliance programs that don't talk to each other. 
 

That are all kind of trying to keep their supply chain as as efficient as possible. And that is because Walmart is EDLP. It's their whole thing is making cheap stuff for the common customer for the everyday, everyday buyer. Or I should say, everyday customer, not a buyer. So what that means is just that Walmart will really be cracking down on their suppliers and they can afford to, right? 
 

So these goals set here, this 98 for on time and in full is different now so we can update that. It's become a little bit more reasonable. But for the most part, Walmart has very high standards for their supply chains. They want stuff on the shelves. And the, one of the ways that they try to do that is by holding their suppliers accountable to a really high standard. 
 

But here's the big three, or at least the big three for, for basically the shipping and routing kind of conversation. Excuse me. 
 

Freight, freight factor, SQEP and OTIF. Freight factor is not so much It's not so much a measurement of supplier success as it is something that is an important kind of thing to be able to know how to write off from an accounting perspective, right? So it's not, it's not so much going to score you as like how you're doing as a supplier. 
 

OTIF and SQEP are very much that but it does change a lot based on your supply chain. And it is a a cost that needs to be written off, or at least that needs to be kind of like taken into consideration. So this is the amount Walmart the amount charged by Walmart to transport the inbound freight for collect suppliers. 
 

So there's three different factors that they take into consideration. Distance, utilization, and mode. So this applies just to collect suppliers. The OTIF and SQEP or parts of OTIF and SQEP apply to prepaid as well as collect shipments as well, so a little bit of a shout out as well, the freight factor is not the same as the collect pickup program, which Walmart is now referring to as the, the Fuel surcharge program or something like that. 
 

I think let us know in the chat, if you remember what that is. I think they just did an announcement. So it's different from all that. That's another, it's another thing that you can kind of add into this conversation. But free factor is more of a general term that's used to talk about. The, the general cost of shipping collect with Walmart. 
 

SQEP, the, or we call it SQEP, a lot of people call it SQEP is is the Supplier Quality Excellence Program that is measuring packaging compliance, packaging, I would say is not, is not a, it's the closest word that we can get whenever we're talking about what SQEP is measuring. But the breakdown that you see right below this is much more kind of detailed, right? 
 

PO accuracy is really more electronic than it is having anything to do with packaging. So it's a really good example of how, of how SQEP goes beyond just packaging. But what you see in phases two and three is you have barcode and labeling, right? So that has to do with how you're communicating. What is, is actually in the shipments themselves and then phase three is packaging pallet and load compliance, scheduling and transportation phase four. 
 

We've heard it's coming but we don't know when, and we haven't heard any update on that. It's always just rumors and whispers. Every like quarter, I feel like I hear from someone else phase four is coming. It's like, Thank you. It's like the man on the street corner with the sign that says the end is nigh. 
 

It's like, like phase four is, is, is imminent, you know, repent, um, because phase four is about to drop. So I haven't heard anything new about it yet but please let me know if you have heard anything about phase four and we can get to that. Do we have a question about SQEP, Danielle? 
 

[00:26:08] Danielle: We have a question that's come through that Anna asked, is there a separate booklet that discusses prepaid shipments, especially a layout of required carton pallet labels when shipping prepaid?

[00:26:20] Peter: Yeah, so well, we actually are working on an ebook about the secondary packaging guide, but the secondary packaging guide is the place where you're going to want to go for that. And I think that I think that we could probably actually I wonder if I can attach it right here. Cause I keep it on my, oh no. 
 

I keep it on my desktop at all times. So, if I can attach this, I'll send it to you there now. It won't. So, maybe maybe Danielle could post the SPS CS24, the most updated version of that document in the chat. That's really where you're going to want to go for for the more kind of granular details on packaging, carton and pallet label requirements for everything prepaid. 
 

So, hopefully that helps. You can also you, you can also find the secondary packaging guide in RetailLink it's there. There used to be, you used to, I used to just Google it because someone had posted it online somewhere, so you could just Google it and find a PDF. But you want to be 100 percent sure that it's the most updated one. 
 

We've been seeing a lot lately of people, um, looking at an older version of the secondary packaging guide and that leading to a lot of kind of miscommunication. So that, that should be your resource there. And then, yeah, stay tuned. We'll have an ebook out that Danielle wrote that we're all really proud of. 
 

That, that will do a similar job of kind of unpacking it in a little bit more palatable of a way. Because that document is massive and not a lot of fun to dig through. So, yeah, stay tuned for that too. So that's SQEP. And SQEP is really it is a relevant question, because SQEP is how you, how you stay on top of SQEP is entirely about your ability to stay on top of those secondary packaging standards especially the supply chain portion at the end. 
 

So that's that. And then OTIF, I already mentioned that this 98 percent is a little bit lower now so that's been updated, which is, which is nice. It's gone back to a pre COVID standard and it's different. One of them is 90. I think that on time. is 90 and then prepaid in full is 95. I think that's what it is. 
 

So it's broken down by that. But basically the point is just that it's really, it's really high standard still. We've seen that being 90 percent on time and 95 percent in full is super uncommon. So even though that the standards have dropped a little bit, there aren't a ton of people who are now going to be getting an A plus on OTIF all of the time. 
 

It's still a really difficult standard. But yeah, and, and OTIF. OTIF is the specific proper noun name of the program, the compliance program at Walmart. But if you're conversant with people in other teams, other retailers, OTIF is also just kind of a term that people will use for compliance generally. 
 

It's a really good summary. Thanks, Daniel. So Daniel posted the SPS there in the chat. And that is the most updated version. So that one should be able to help a little bit with looking at, looking into that. 
 

Sorry, I lost my train of thought. OTIF is a just a kind of a common phrase for talking about compliance across all retailers. So that's an important little caveat to remember when you're talking about OTIF at Walmart. Are you talking about compliance generally or are you talking about this specific compliance program and it's, it's measurements. 
 

So also let us know if you've heard an update on this. The latest that we have is that Sam's Club The Sam's Club version of OTIF is just a visibility and that there aren't fines yet for that. That would be great if it just stays that way forever. But it does affect, OTIF does affect all brick and mortar and e com suppliers. 
 

So the Sam's Club OTIF hopefully is just for visibility. It doesn't direct direct to store, DSD. That's like more of the kind of I guess small packaging. Some suppliers do go direct to store a lot, but for the most part, DSD, I think of it as like the in store supplies, like cleaning supplies for custodians and stuff like that. 
 

Doesn't apply to direct import, Walmart International or Marketplace sellers either. And a little bit of a shout out. Also, if you're disputing AR chargebacks at Walmart, so that's SQEP and OTIF fines, that is all done through HiRadius, which is a separate software provider that Walmart has partnered with to deal with all of that. 
 

And we've covered that in other webinars as well, if you're curious about that. Also and we have a link to it here that will be sent out. The SPS, oh, that's the, this is the SPS CS 23. Do not click this link. This one has just gone out of date in the last little bit. There aren't a ton of changes from what I can tell. 
 

There aren't a ton of changes from the 24 to the. from the 23 to the 24, but still completely disregard that and download the one that's in the chat instead. I think that that would be best. But for SQEP finds, basically these can be summarized as defects. We've written a lot on this as well. 
 

Any non compliant. Compliance instance against the secondary packaging standards is considered a defect. These are measured in different ways, depending on the phase, depending on the individual thing. But yeah, it has to do with everything from ASNs, everything from PO accuracy, that's what Walmart calls it, to the individual, you know, is your cardboard strong enough and stuff like that. 
 

So that's what SQEP is. OTIF you have in full, which is kind of a category all all on its own. And then collect ready and prepaid on time are the on time section split up into those two two different categories. And basically it's the same thing. It's like, is your shipment ready to get picked up if Walmart's fleet is coming to get it for collect? 
 

Or is, is the the prepaid shipment on time? For some suppliers those will be kind of treated the same way because you'll be working with a 3PL who you're treating basically the same way that you would Walmart's fleet for coming to pick it up on time. But it is a little bit more complicated because sometimes you might get a prepaid on time ding for a 3PL, even if your shipment was ready for the 3PL to pick up at that individual time. 
 

And if that's the case, then that's something that you need to use to negotiate with your 3PL in terms of payments. How are you going to deal with those charges? Are they going to play ball with you whenever it comes to that, or are they going to try to push it off onto someone else and you need to maybe explore a new logistics provider or something like that, right? 
 

They're all really great. I'm not, I don't, it sounded like I was kind of hating on 3PLs for a little bit there. I'm not, no, they're all really great. But it's a business relationship like any other, I guess. But that's a general breakdown of that, and again, we cover that in greater detail in other places as well. 
 

Okay, I want to spend some time here on the best practices before going into our Q& A time. So maybe start thinking about if you have any other questions that you would like fleshed out a little bit more. We can cover that too. Another really reminder here is that these are this is basically Walmart's description of a best in class supplier performance. 
 

That's what they're really looking for. That's the language that they use to describe to describe these best practices. So for routing Walmart has some recommendations for before confirming POs. Checking if the PO quantities, and that could be any number of things, accurately represent the precise amount of trailer space needed for each PO, right? 
 

So, it's important, a lot of people talk about this in the logistics world, just about, just cubing, right? Is it all, is it all going to kind of make sense within that? within that allotted space. And if it's not, then we there's the page numbers there, 31 through 42 which is about which enumerates the different ways to kind of edit quantities in the confirmed shipment sort of section. 
 

But again, that's before confirming the POs. You want to make sure that all of that is kind of done. And then you can also contact the RM or merchant. slash Buyer for assistance in updating the online item settings to ensure future accuracy. RMs and buyers are generally pretty motivated to work with you on all of that because what they want is that shelf space all kind of figured out. 
 

Before confirming the POs again, so we've got a little bit more here under the same heading is the PO routed for the correct aligned ship point, right? So this is if you're, if you're if you're shipping collect is that, is that ship point the right one? And then page 106 of the Shipping and Routing Guide is helpful for kind of talking about that alignment. 
 

Same steps on editing the ship point. Or before the confirmed ship shipment in the shipping and routing guide there. I said ship like 20 times in that sentence. Pages 31 through 42 of the guide will be kind of helpful for all of that. But in this case, it's the FTLO team that you would want to contact to correct the transom ship point alignment for future accuracy. 
 

So it changes based on the individual thing that you're wanting to get aligned on. And then also before confirming POs. Do you have all product for the POs available to ship on time? Yeah, that's again, this is, this is Walmart's language. But ideally you could have it all on hand and you could you could refrain from confirming the POs beforehand. 
 

If you didn't. And then when product is available, you can contact replenishment. Or you could, you can do all of this in Nova as well to extend the MABD or DNSB before confirming the POs as well. Do we have a question on that, Danielle?  
 

[00:36:03] Danielle: Yes, we have a question on routing. So the question is from Judy and Judy asked for the routing is it by 4pm next day or within 24 hours? 
 

[00:36:14] Peter: Okay. So my understanding and and correct me if I'm wrong, anyone else in the chat, my understanding is that it is 4 p. m. the next day and not a rolling 24 hour thing. But that's, I may be conflating that with something else. But let me know if that sounds correct. And Judy, I can, I can double check that here in a little bit and and get back to you. 
 

Also, so off the top of my head, it's, it's the 4 p. m. of the next day, but I will make a note of that here real quick. 
 

Oh, okay. She's not asking a question. She was she was helping clarify that it is by 4 p. m. Or within 24 hours, whichever comes first. Thank you. That is helpful. Okay. I thought it was always 4pm. Thanks for that. Okay. So, a little bit more on the routing best practices. If you have product ready and available to ship this is, again, this is Walmart's language. 
 

POs can be confirmed 60 days before the MABD on the PO. They must be confirmed in shipment in confirmed shipment as soon as possible after receiving the POs. Again the best that you can do is the best that you can do, so take all that with a grain of salt. Walmart requires that they're confirmed by 4 p.m., central time, the following calendar day, after receiving them. Or as Judy has just mentioned, within 24 hours, whichever comes first. We're gonna we're gonna update that here, um, in a little bit too before before we send this out. So thanks for that super helpful information. If the product is available to ship again, a little bit more here. 
 

This is, and again, this is Walmart language. This is some of this is very intuitive. So some of it not so much. So manual POs may be confirmed confirmed 30 days prior to the MAPD. If the 30 days prior to the MABD, the expectation is to confirm the purchase order by 4pm or within 24 hours. Do not confirm your POs if product is not available to ship by the DNSB. 
 

It's starting to sound a little bit like a broken record there, but that's the big point of emphasis in this whole conversation from Walmart's perspective. Okay. So these are the shippers of choice. Thanks, guys. And again, this is a little bit more high level. So here we have scheduling a little bit more high level.

There is some really helpful, important kind of granular details here. But for the most part stuff like build relationships with our carrier base through proactive and open communication, right? That would be a shipper of choice. Minimize driver dwell time at origin, which is another way of just saying, have an efficient supply chain, get everyone in and out, have all the product ready there on the day of pickup. So yeah, their expectation is two hours there, load and depart within two hours. Or having freight availability expedite the check in process so that there isn't a huge backup. That's happened a lot for a variety of reasons. A lot of Walmart supplier facing documentation is very much limited to getting suppliers to think of everything in terms of their responsibilities, their culpability, and all of this, but any number of things could could happen that could delay efficiency at a shit point. 
 

So From a supplier's perspective, being as prepared as possible for whatever those varieties are is ideal. Walmart identifies shippers of choice as abiding by the following also, so this is continued, allowing for work ins as needed while also prioritizing drivers who arrive in a timely fashion. 
 

That'd be great. That'd be ideal. Provide at least 8 hours of shipping per day and consider including weekend hours, so that's that 8 hour limit or sorry, that 8 hour minimum that Walmart requires in ship point creation, coming back there in a different form. And then provide facilities that can accommodate drivers and loading flexibility. 
 

Yes, ideally. Again, the best thing is to just be able to get everyone in and out in 2 hours and efficiently, and if you can do that, then that's great. So the best way to build flexibility into your schedule is planning open appointment slots into each day. I think that's a good call out. 
 

Something I've heard from other people. Again, it's, it's ideal. It doesn't necessarily work in every single circumstance, but That is ideal. It helps accommodate work ins and reschedules, which should be thought of as an inevitability as well. That will happen. So, for loading best practices, this is a little bit more on the SPS slash SQEP side of things. 
 

But you can see page 122 of the Shipping and Routing Guide or in the Supply Chain, the Secondary Packaging Standards, the Supply Chain portion, which is that final third portion around pages 230 and 245 that will have a lot of helpful information for the Palette and Slipsheet. versus floor loading guidelines. 
 

So those those different kind of portions. In the secondary packaging standards and in the shipping and routing guide they are Command F or Control F searchable and that's how I always do it. So, these page numbers I would say aren't even that important. What really matters is getting familiar enough with the document that you can figure out how to maximize your ability to do good and, and thorough word searches on them. 
 

It's a really valuable skill to have for for being able to find something on, on any topic, really. And then other loading best practices from regulations will be That 120 to 131 just generally. So you've got the 122 particularly for the pallet versus slip sheet versus floor loading guidelines, but that whole section 120 to 131 should be relevant for all of that as well. 
 

And that is it in terms of content. Do we have any other questions remaining?

[00:42:24] Danielle: Well, first of all, thank you for running through all of that content, Peter, and thank you to everyone in the chat for joining us today. We really appreciate the engagement and just the insights that everybody has to offer. We find that very helpful. 
 

It looks like we didn't have any further questions, but I'll just give it a little bit more time. And in the meantime, I just wanted to call out some of our resources. We've had a couple of them already flow through the chat. But if you're looking for more hands on material, we have multiple free educational eBooks, a great one to go hand in hand with this webinar is that Walmart Shipping and Routing Transportation Guide that is more of a cheat sheet and like just a, a more, a summarized version. 
 

So I will go ahead and submit that in the chat. And then also we have recently released a guide to Walmart's Luminate. That has been a very hot topic and Peter has done a great job at putting that eBook together. So I just encourage you to go check it out. I will also go ahead and submit that in the chat. 
 

So we still don't have any questions that have come through. If you think of a question later or would like to share any insights, please feel free to reach out to us on our email. It is up there on the screen. And or you can find us on our website, supplypike. com. So we would just love to continue that conversation with you. 
 

Once again, thank you all for joining us today. We will see you next time.  
 

[00:43:46] Peter: All right, I just wanted to do one other quick shout out about our Shipping and Routing Transportation Guide Cheat Sheet and how it's a little bit different from the webinars. The webinars are meant to be a little bit more engaging and kind of interactive and our cheat sheets are more of like the slide decks themselves. 
 

Could be a helpful resource just to kind of keep on hand or to distribute with your team. that can be Ctrl F searched and, and, and kept on hand for any kind of like quick reference, right? So whatever, um, whatever that particular kind of information is that you might need from there, you can keep it there so that you don't have to log into RetailLink to get it straight from the horse's mouth every time. 
 

But thank you all so much for coming out and for your engagement. It's been great. We will see you all next time.