B2B wholesale fulfillment services

When Retail Orders Start Acting Like a Different Species

B2B wholesale fulfillment services become essential the moment your carefully tuned DTC operation meets its first real retail purchase order. A retail PO does not care that your warehouse prefers neat little pick bins and fast-moving ecom cartons. Retail orders demand precision, pallet configuration, carton labeling, routing guide compliance, and deadlines that show up with the urgency of a smoke alarm. When brands scale into wholesale without the right B2B fulfillment infrastructure, the results are almost always painful. Chargebacks multiply. Appointments get missed. Inventory accuracy collapses under pressure. Your DTC rhythm becomes collateral damage.

Search trends show growing interest in B2B wholesale fulfillment as more ecommerce brands enter retail for the first time. The promise is obvious, but the operational shift is dramatic. Retailers do not play by marketplace rules. They play by rulebooks measured in pages, not bullet points. Missing one detail can send an entire shipment back on a truck like a bad report card.

Why DTC Teams Struggle With Wholesale

DTC operations are optimized for speed, flexibility, and high order volume. Wholesale fulfillment is optimized for compliance, predictability, and strict formatting. Those are not opposite goals, but they are rarely achieved using the same workflows.

Many teams underestimate retail complexity. A single PO can include dozens of SKUs, multiple delivery windows, unique ticketing requirements, and case pack configurations that ignore how your products actually ship DTC. The warehouse must shift from fulfilling a thousand tiny orders to building a handful of large, unforgiving ones.

Maureen Milligan, Director of Operations and Projects at G10, hears this regularly from incoming clients. She explains that "most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and meeting the committed requirements." Those challenges double in wholesale where accuracy and compliance are non-negotiable.

How Retail Compliance Creates Operational Gravity

Retailers expect flawless compliance because their supply chains are massive, rigid, and expensive to correct. Each retailer enforces its own routing guide, pallet standards, carton labels, ASN requirements, and appointment scheduling procedures. Missing one tiny detail results in chargebacks that can erase the margin of an entire order.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment at G10, outlines the discipline required to survive retail workflows. "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper." Scanning ensures every carton, pallet, and case pack is verified, traceable, and compliant. Paper processes fall apart quickly when a retailer asks why a pallet configuration does not match the ASN filed earlier that morning.

Building Wholesale Orders One Structured Step at a Time

B2B wholesale fulfillment requires structure that mirrors retailer expectations. Orders must be broken into logical assembly sequences. Cases are built according to retailer standards. Pallets are configured for stability, accessibility, and compliance. Cartons receive the correct labels, barcodes, and routing information. Nothing is improvised, because improvisation causes rework.

G10 uses ChannelPoint to orchestrate these workflows automatically. Retail orders enter the system with detailed routing requirements, and pick paths adjust so workers can gather bulk quantities quickly. Staging areas support pallet building without conflicting with DTC flow. Wholesale becomes its own structured lane instead of an interruption.

The Role of Slotting and Storage in B2B Efficiency

Wholesale relies on bulk movement. If SKUs are stored for DTC picking, wholesale orders waste time. If SKUs are stored for wholesale, DTC picking slows down. The challenge is finding a hybrid strategy where both can coexist without competing for space or labor.

G10 uses dynamic slotting to separate wholesale bulk inventory from DTC velocity lanes. High-volume wholesale SKUs may receive dedicated pallet positions while smaller wholesale SKUs integrate into mixed storage zones without disrupting DTC pick paths. Oversized items receive special handling, especially when pallet configuration must support heavy or awkward loads.

Automation to Support Heavy Wholesale Workflows

Wholesale fulfillment is labor intensive. Case picks require strength, repetition, and careful sequencing. The introduction of Zebra autonomous robots inside G10 facilities reduces wasted walking time and keeps workers close to the tasks that matter. Robots move materials between staging, pallet build zones, and labeling stations so employees focus on accuracy rather than marathon-level walking.

Holly Woods, Director of Operations at G10, describes the impact. "The Zebra robots are allowing efficiency with pick paths. They are lowering fatigue on employees." In wholesale fulfillment, lower fatigue means fewer mistakes, stronger throughput, and more consistent compliance.

Retail Appointments and Scheduling Discipline

Retailers do not allow trucks to show up whenever they feel like it. Delivery appointments must be booked days or even weeks in advance. Missing a window can result in rejection or financial penalties. Wholesale fulfillment services require a scheduling team that understands retailer processes, communicates proactively with carriers, and ensures pallets leave the warehouse at the right moment.

ChannelPoint supports appointment workflows by tying ASNs, pallet IDs, and shipping timelines together. When everything flows from the same system, wholesale teams spend less time juggling spreadsheets and more time executing orders correctly.

Returns and Reverse Logistics for Wholesale

B2B returns are a different beast. Retailers return in bulk, not as individual units. Pallets may come back damaged, partial, or mispacked. The receiving team must sort through the inbound mess without disrupting outbound wholesale flows.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10, describes the process clearly. "It looks good, we are going to restock this, or it looks damaged, we are going to either dispose of it or put it in a quarantine area." Wholesale returns need this clarity because the scale magnifies the consequences of misclassification.

Integrating Wholesale With Multi-Channel Forecasting

Wholesale orders are lumpy. One week you ship nothing. The next, a retailer drops a PO that consumes a month of inventory. Demand planning must account for these swings or DTC customers suffer stockouts created by wholesale unpredictability.

Holly explains how forecasting supports wholesale cycles. "We start planning peak times months ahead of time. We run forecast models, staffing models, and we audit inventory." Wholesale projections feed directly into slotting, replenishment schedules, and labor models inside G10 operations.

Wholesale as a Growth Engine

Wholesale can transform a brand. It boosts volume, deepens market presence, and builds legitimacy with buyers. But it only works if wholesale fulfillment is predictable, efficient, and compliant. The brands that succeed are not the ones with the best products. They are the ones with the most disciplined operations.

Mark Becker, CEO and founder of G10, frames the long-term vision. "We are going to grow with them." Wholesale fulfillment is part of that commitment. When brands outgrow purely DTC models, wholesale becomes the next proving ground for operational maturity.

Wholesale Without the Whiplash

If your B2B orders feel chaotic, overly manual, or prone to chargebacks, it may be time to rebuild the workflows. B2B wholesale fulfillment services bring structure to retailer demands, stability to inventory planning, and reliability to outbound execution. When wholesale works smoothly, it strengthens your entire supply chain instead of stressing it.

When your team is ready to make wholesale fulfillment feel less like a test and more like an opportunity, G10 can help you build a program grounded in precision, visibility, and retailer confidence.