Wholesale Carrier Performance That Keeps Retail Deliveries Dependable and Deduction-Free

Wholesale delivery becomes easier to manage when carriers perform consistently. Appointments are met, arrival times stay within expected windows, and loads are accepted without debate. When carriers operate predictably, retailers receive product as planned, scorecards stay clean, and delivery timing stops being a daily concern for the brand.

That consistency stabilizes the rest of the operation. Warehouses can stage freight with confidence, customer service fields fewer delivery questions, and inventory becomes available to retailers when promised. Carrier performance stops feeling like a risk variable and starts functioning as a dependable extension of fulfillment. For e-commerce brands selling wholesale, reliable carriers protect retail relationships, reduce deductions, and make growth easier to support because transportation behaves the same way week after week.

Why carrier performance matters in wholesale

Retailers judge you by the carriers you use. If a carrier misses an appointment, arrives outside the window, delivers damaged freight, or fails to follow routing guide instructions, the retailer does not blame the carrier. They blame the brand. That means carrier performance is not a transportation problem. It is a wholesale compliance problem.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10, put it succinctly. "If you do not do it right, you get those massive chargebacks." Carrier mistakes count as your mistakes.

Where wholesale carrier performance usually breaks down

Most performance issues occur long before the truck is on the road. Loads are not staged in time. ASNs transmit late. Pallets do not match the load plan. Cartons shift during transit. Retailer requirements are not communicated clearly. When the warehouse falls behind, carriers cannot perform.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment, sees the root cause often. "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLs is inventory accuracy. Maybe their previous 3PL was not great at picking the orders accurately. So they were losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." Wrong inventory equals wrong loads, which equals poor carrier performance.

Why D2C-first providers fall short on wholesale requirements

D2C carrier performance is judged by fast movement of parcels. Wholesale performance is judged by perfect alignment with routing guides, pallet builds, documentation, and appointment times. Carriers serving wholesale environments must operate within tighter rules and narrower windows. When D2C-first 3PLs try to manage wholesale freight, they underestimate the complexity and damage carrier reliability.

Bryan Wright, CTO and COO, highlighted the systems gap. "A bad WMS will not track inventory 100 percent. A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point you touch it." Without data accuracy, carriers cannot perform accurately either.

How slow communication destroys carrier performance

Carrier performance depends on timing. A single uncommunicated delay cascades into a missed schedule. Retailers will not wait. If a 3PL responds slowly to issues, you end up with trucks waiting at docks, missed appointments, and deliveries that fall outside compliance windows.

Joel sees this frequently. "At some 3PLs you get thrown into a ticketed queue, and you get different people replying every time. It can take days, if not weeks, to get a resolution." Carrier performance dies in that environment. G10 avoids this breakdown entirely. "You call one person. That is it. And things get done," Joel said.

What strong wholesale carrier performance looks like

High-performing carrier networks depend on clean documentation, consistent staging, disciplined pallet building, and well-planned appointments. Carriers arrive to find freight ready, wrapped correctly, labeled properly, and staged in a predictable pattern. ASNs match exactly. Appointments are booked early. Nothing is improvised.

Connor described how this expectation starts at onboarding. "When we onboard a client who sells into places like Amazon or Walmart, the process changes depending on where they are selling. We work through all of their routing guide requirements and make sure the warehouse is ready before the first order ever drops." Carrier performance begins with clear retail expectations.

Why accurate loads protect carrier reliability

Carriers depend on operational precision as much as they depend on speed, because predictable freight movement underpins their ability to plan capacity, maintain on-time performance, and honor service commitments. When pallets match the load plan, carton counts are correct, and labels are placed properly, carriers can focus on moving freight instead of stopping to resolve preventable issues that consume time and introduce variability at every handoff.

Industry practitioners reinforce this through performance frameworks like carrier scorecards, where accuracy and consistency are treated as prerequisites for reliability rather than administrative details. As logistics pricing and performance expert Stefano Danelli of Xeneta explains, carrier scorecards “provide a structured and transparent approach for evaluating carrier performance across cost, service, and reliability metrics,” allowing teams to shift from reactive issue resolution to proactive performance management as consistency improves.

For fulfillment operations, this makes accuracy a functional requirement rather than a clerical concern, because correct load plans support routing efficiency, reduce manual intervention, and protect delivery windows. When carriers can trust the freight they receive, performance stabilizes, exceptions decline, and predictable preparation becomes the foundation of reliable movement across the network.

Carrier performance under pressure at G10

The truest test of carrier reliability comes when operations face stress: late inbounds, urgent retailer pushes, end-of-quarter spikes, or sudden D2C volume surges. Weak carriers and weak processes crumble. Strong carriers and structured workflows stay upright.

Joel shared the Target story that has become a G10 classic. "Our supervisor, warehouse manager, and several employees worked the entire day into the night, then came back at 5 a.m. to make sure we had the routing completed." Carriers performed well because G10 made the load ready against all odds.

He shared another moment during a viral D2C surge. "The client asked, Can you help us? And we said, Yeah, we gotcha. Then we sent a truck to the carrier at midnight." That flexibility kept carrier performance high.

The bottom line for wholesale brands

Wholesale carrier performance is not about faster trucks. It is about better operations. When your logistics partner prepares freight correctly, books appointments early, communicates quickly, and understands retailer rules deeply, your carriers deliver consistently. When your 3PL cuts corners, your carriers fail and your scorecards suffer.

If you want carrier performance that keeps retailers confident and deliveries smooth, reach out to G10. You will get disciplined preparation, honest inventory, and communication that ensures every truck arrives exactly when retailers expect it.