What happens if a delivery misses its DC appointment?

It depends on the retailer, but typically the load is either refused at the gate or held for the next available slot, which at a busy DC can be several days out. Either way it usually counts against the supplier's on-time score, and may attract a chargeback.

Who pays a retail chargeback, the carrier or the supplier?

Almost always the supplier. That is the asymmetry worth understanding: a carrier unfamiliar with a DC's requirements creates a cost that lands on you rather than on them, which is why carrier selection for retail freight is not purely a rate decision.

What is a routing guide?

The retailer's published specification for how freight must arrive: pallet build and dimensions, label format and placement, advance ship notice requirements, stacking rules and permitted equipment. It is the document that determines whether a load is accepted cleanly, and it varies by retailer and sometimes by banner.

Can you deliver into retail DCs on booked appointments?

Yes, regularly — national grocery, general merchandise and apparel retailers, on scheduled appointments, on our own trucks. Send the routing guide and we will work to it rather than improvise, and we treat the window as a hard commitment because missing one costs everybody money.

What does a retail distribution centre appointment window actually require?

Retail DC delivery: the window is the whole job.

6 min read · Updated August 1, 2026

What does a retail distribution centre appointment window actually require?

A retail distribution centre appointment is a booked delivery slot, often as narrow as an hour, that a carrier must reserve in advance through the retailer's scheduling system. Arriving outside it typically means the load is refused or held until the next available slot, which can be days later. The appointment is only part of compliance: most large retailers also publish a routing guide specifying pallet dimensions and build, label placement and barcode format, packing-slip and ASN requirements, and how loads must be stacked. Failures against any of these commonly result in chargebacks billed back to the supplier rather than the carrier, which is why vendors carry the cost of a carrier who does not know the system.

For anyone shipping into national retail, the appointment window is where the money quietly leaks. Not the freight rate — the chargebacks, the redeliveries, and the on-time score that decides whether you keep the listing.

This is what actually sits behind that one line on the purchase order.

The appointment itself

Slots are booked in advance through the retailer's scheduling platform, and at busy DCs the good ones go days ahead. The window can be an hour or less. A carrier who has not worked that DC before will underestimate how far in advance to book and how long the check-in queue runs.

Miss it and you are usually not simply late. Depending on the retailer, the load is refused, or it waits for the next free slot — and at a busy period that is not tomorrow.

The routing guide is the real specification

Most large retailers publish one, and it is the document that decides whether your load is accepted cleanly. It is worth reading rather than delegating blindly.

Pallet dimensions, height limits, overhang rules and how loads must be stacked and wrapped
Label format and placement, often to a specific corner and height, with barcode requirements
Advance ship notice and packing-slip requirements, and when they must be transmitted
Carrier and equipment requirements, and whether a drop trailer is permitted
Which of these carry a chargeback, and how much

Chargebacks are usually billed to the supplier, not the carrier. That is the asymmetry: a carrier who does not know a DC costs you money rather than costing themselves money.

The on-time score you may not be watching

Large retailers score suppliers on delivery performance, and the score has consequences well beyond the invoice — replenishment decisions, promotional slots, and in the worst case the listing itself. It is generally measured against the appointment, not the ship date, so a load that leaves on time and arrives outside its window still counts against you.

This is the argument for treating the window as a hard commitment rather than a target. A near miss is a full miss in the scoring.

How to protect yourself

Most of the failure modes are avoidable, and the fixes are unglamorous.

Give whoever ships for you the routing guide, and confirm they have read it rather than filed it
Build in buffer at the warehouse end so the load is staged before the truck arrives, not during
Walk the first delivery to a new DC deliberately, the way you would a first production run
Reconcile chargebacks rather than absorbing them — some are wrong, and unchallenged ones become the baseline
Keep storage and transport close together, so a warehouse delay and a delivery window are one conversation rather than two suppliers explaining each other

Why we know this

Rolls Right has been running freight into national retail distribution centres for decades — Costco for more than twenty years, Walmart on RetailLink, plus regular volume for Loblaws, Dollarama and Best Buy. Roughly twenty trailers a day into Costco, thirty to forty into Walmart in Calgary.

That is a haulage relationship rather than a claim that each one warehouses with us. But it is why the scheduling systems, the routing guides and the paperwork are familiar ground here rather than something to be learned on your account.