U.S. logistics and warehousing.

Why this matters

Logistics is the half of U.S. market entry that brands solve last and pay for most. It is unglamorous, it is invisible when it works, and it is the reason a first purchase order gets cancelled when it doesn’t.

The pattern is consistent. A brand spends a year on compliance, pricing, positioning and buyer meetings, wins a listing, and then discovers that the retailer expects the product delivered to a specific door, in a specific carton configuration, within a specific four-hour window, with an electronic notification sent in advance and a label format nobody mentioned. The product is perfect. The delivery is rejected.

There is a second, quieter version. The brand ships successfully but from an arrangement that cannot scale — a freight forwarder’s spare corner, a friend’s warehouse, a 3PL selected on price. It works at one pallet a month and fails at forty, which arrives exactly when the brand can least afford disruption.

This guide covers the physical journey from factory to shelf, in order, and the places international brands most often get caught.

Freight and the cost of getting here

Most products entering the U.S. from Europe, Australasia or Asia arrive by sea. The economics are straightforward and the timelines are not.

Full container or shared? A full container load is cheaper per unit and requires you to fill it. Less-than-container-load shipping costs more per unit, involves consolidation and deconsolidation, and adds time and handling risk. Most entering brands start LCL and move to FCL as volume justifies it. Model both; the crossover point is usually earlier than founders expect.

Transit times are not the whole timeline. Ocean transit is one component. Booking lead time, port congestion at both ends, customs clearance, drayage to the warehouse and receiving all sit on top. A brand planning against transit time alone will be late.

Freight rates move. They have been volatile enough in recent years that a quote from eighteen months ago is not a planning figure. Build the current rate into the landed cost model and revisit it.

Air freight is a tactical tool, not a strategy. It is the right answer for a sample shipment, a launch quantity that cannot slip, or a stockout that would cost a listing. Used routinely it will consume the margin the whole exercise depends on.

Incoterms decide who carries what. The difference between EXW, FOB, CIF and DDP is the difference between who arranges, who pays and who is liable at each stage. Agree them explicitly with your manufacturer. Assumed Incoterms produce disputes at exactly the moment nobody has time for one.

Customs, duty and entry

Getting a container to a U.S. port is not the same as getting the goods into the country.

Tariff classification determines the duty rate, and getting it wrong is expensive in both directions — underpayment invites penalties, overpayment is money donated. Classification for supplements, foods and cosmetics is not always obvious, and it is worth establishing early rather than leaving to whoever files the first entry.

A customs bond is required for commercial imports. Continuous bonds cover a year of shipments and are usually the sensible choice for anyone importing regularly.

A licensed customs broker files the entry on your behalf. They are not optional in practice and they are not interchangeable — a broker who understands FDA- regulated commodities will save you more than the fee difference.

Importer of record is a legal role with real liability attached. Whoever holds it is responsible for the accuracy of the entry, the duty owed and the compliance of the goods. For a foreign brand with no U.S. entity, this question needs answering before the first shipment, not at the port.

FDA-regulated goods carry additional obligations — prior notice before arrival, and foreign supplier verification where a U.S. importer is involved. Entries are screened, and a shipment can be held on labeling grounds alone. The compliance guide covers this in detail; the point here is that it happens at the border, where delay is expensive.

Choosing where inventory lives

The warehouse decision is made once and lived with for years.

What actually matters

• Proximity to the port you import through. Drayage is charged by distance and time. A facility an hour from the port and a facility four hours from it are different businesses.
• Whether the facility can handle your category. Food-grade storage, FDA registration where applicable, temperature control if your product needs it, and pest control documentation a retailer’s auditor will accept.
• Whether it can do both retail and direct-to-consumer. Palletised outbound to a retailer and single-parcel picking are different operations. A facility good at one is not automatically good at the other, and needing two facilities means splitting your inventory.
• Systems. Whether their warehouse management system can produce the labels, documents and electronic messages retailers require, and whether it integrates with your e-commerce channels.
• What happens when something goes wrong. Who answers the phone, how quickly, and whether they will physically walk to a pallet and look at it.

One inventory position or several

The instinct is to place stock near customers. For an entering brand it is usually wrong.

Two locations means duplicating safety stock, forecasting twice, and discovering that the product a customer ordered is on the wrong coast. It also means two answers when a buyer asks what you can ship, which is one answer too many.

Start with one position that serves both retail and e-commerce, and add a second node when the account footprint genuinely justifies it — not in anticipation of a footprint you hope to win.

Retailer routing compliance

This is the section that costs brands money they never see itemised.

Every chain retailer publishes a routing guide — a document, sometimes hundreds of pages, specifying exactly how shipments must be prepared, labelled, booked and delivered. It is not advisory. Deviations produce chargebacks, and chargebacks are deducted from your invoice without discussion.

The requirements that catch new vendors most often:

• Carton marking. Specific label formats, in specific positions, with specific barcode symbologies. A correct label in the wrong corner is a deduction.
• Palletisation. Pallet type, height limits, tie and stack patterns, shrink wrap specification, and whether mixed SKUs are permitted on a pallet.
• Advance ship notice. An electronic message sent before the truck arrives, describing precisely what is on it. Missing or inaccurate ASNs are among the most common deductions.
• Delivery appointments. Booked in advance, kept within a window. Missing an appointment can mean the load is turned away and rebooked days later.
• Documentation. Purchase order numbers, bills of lading and packing lists matching to the unit.

Two things follow from this. First, your 3PL must be able to do this, and many smaller ones cannot. Ask specifically, before you sign, which chains they currently ship to compliantly. Second, deductions are a controllable cost. Unlike trade spend, which is negotiated, chargebacks are self-inflicted. A brand that ships accurately keeps money a sloppy brand hands back.

Marketplace fulfilment

If you sell on Amazon — and most brands should, because it produces the velocity evidence retail buyers ask for — there is a second set of rules.

FBA prep requirements cover labelling, poly-bagging, bundling, expiry date marking and case configuration. Non-compliant inbound shipments are refused or charged a preparation fee, and repeat problems can affect your account.

Inbound placement is decided by Amazon, not you, which means a single shipment can be split across multiple fulfilment centres with the freight cost that implies.

Storage fees escalate with age. Inventory sitting in an Amazon fulfilment centre for a long period costs materially more, which makes marketplace forecasting a financial exercise rather than an operational one.

The sensible structure for most brands: hold the reserve in your own facility and send working stock to Amazon. It keeps one inventory pool, avoids long-term storage fees, and means retail demand and marketplace demand are served from the same forecast.

Inventory planning and working capital

The operational question and the financial question are the same question.

Lead times are long and they compound. Manufacturing, plus ocean transit, plus clearance, plus receiving means the decision to reorder is made months before the stock is sellable. Growing brands routinely under-order, because the forecast was built on last quarter’s run rate.

Fill rate is a scored metric. Chain retailers measure it. Falling short means deductions, and persistent shortfall means the listing is at risk regardless of how well the product sells when it is on the shelf. Being out of stock in U.S. retail is worse than being slow — you are penalised for demand you cannot serve.

Working capital is the real constraint on growth. You pay your manufacturer, then wait for the container, then wait for sell-through, then wait for the retailer’s payment terms. That gap is months, and it widens as you grow. A brand that wins a large order without the capital to produce and land the stock has won a problem.

Plan for what a listing actually requires. Initial fill for a national chain, plus safety stock, plus the replenishment already in transit, is a substantial commitment before a single unit sells through.

Common mistakes

1. Choosing a 3PL on price. The cheapest quote is frequently the one that cannot do retail routing compliance, which costs more in deductions than it saved.
2. Splitting inventory too early. Two positions before the footprint justifies it duplicates safety stock and strands product on the wrong coast.
3. Ignoring the routing guide until the first order. It is published in advance for a reason.
4. Planning against ocean transit time. Booking, congestion, clearance, drayage and receiving all sit on top of it.
5. Leaving Incoterms unstated. Assumed terms become disputes.
6. Treating storage as a rounding error. You pay to hold stock that has not sold, and a slow first year is expensive twice.
7. Winning an order you cannot fund. Working capital, not demand, is what stops most second-year brands.
8. Assuming e-commerce and retail can share nothing. They should share one inventory pool and one forecast.

Frequently asked questions

Do we need a U.S. entity to import?

Not necessarily, but someone must act as importer of record and carry the liability that comes with it. A foreign brand without a U.S. entity needs that role filled explicitly — by a partner, an agent or an arrangement agreed in advance rather than at the port.

What is a routing guide, and how strictly is it enforced?

It is the retailer’s specification for how shipments must be prepared and delivered, and it is enforced automatically through chargebacks deducted from your invoice. There is rarely a conversation.

How much stock should we land for a first order?

Enough for initial fill, plus safety stock, plus replenishment in transit before the first sell-through data arrives. The figure is specific to the account and the velocity assumption, and it is almost always larger than a first-time vendor expects.

Should we use Amazon FBA or our own warehouse?

Both, usually. Hold the reserve in your own facility and send working stock into FBA. It keeps one inventory pool, avoids long-term storage fees and means one forecast serves both channels.

When does a second warehouse make sense?

When the account footprint justifies it — typically when East Coast delivery costs or transit times are demonstrably costing you business. Not in anticipation.

What is fill rate and why does it matter so much?

The proportion of what a retailer ordered that you actually delivered, on time and complete. It is scored, it produces deductions when it falls short, and persistent shortfall puts the listing at risk. It is one of the few metrics where being unable to meet demand is punished as heavily as having none.

Can our existing freight forwarder handle this?

A forwarder moves freight. Retail routing compliance, marketplace prep and pick-and-pack fulfilment are different capabilities. Ask specifically which U.S. chains they currently ship to compliantly, and treat a vague answer as a no.

Summary

Agree Incoterms before the first shipment and model freight at current rates, not last year’s. Establish tariff classification early and appoint a customs broker who understands FDA-regulated goods. Choose a facility on capability rather than price — specifically, whether it can do retail routing compliance and marketplace prep out of one inventory position. Read the routing guide before the first order rather than after the first chargeback. Plan inventory against lead times that compound, and plan working capital against payment terms that arrive last. Then keep one stock pool serving retail and e-commerce, so there is one number when a buyer asks what you can ship.

This guide is educational and reflects our operating experience importing and distributing consumer brands in the United States. It is general information, not legal, customs or financial advice. Requirements vary by product, port, carrier and retailer, and they change. Confirm your obligations with a licensed customs broker and qualified counsel before acting. Last reviewed August 2026.