Our articles are currently available in English only.
FreightStop chasing your freight forwarder
One timeline for production, transit, customs and FBA check-in — so you know the moment an ETA slips, without another status email.
Our articles are currently available in English only.
FreightOne timeline for production, transit, customs and FBA check-in — so you know the moment an ETA slips, without another status email.
For a lot of brands, "freight tracking" is an inbox. A thread with the forwarder, a PDF from the factory, an email asking whether there's any news. It works, sort of — until a shipment slips and nobody notices for two weeks.
The hours spent chasing updates are the small cost. The real one is finding out late. A delay at the port of loading is manageable if you hear about it the day it happens. Discover it three weeks later and it's often a stockout — one you could have seen coming and planned around.
A shipment from a factory in China to Amazon passes through a predictable set of stages. Track each one as a date, not a mood:
It's tempting to watch the arrival date and relax once the ship docks. But arrival isn't the finish line. Customs can take days. Delivery to a fulfillment center takes more. And FBA receiving — the step where Amazon actually checks your units in — can add anything from a few days to a couple of weeks.
Delivered isn't the same as available.
The date that matters for your inventory is the day the stock becomes sellable. Plan against that one.
Track the date stock goes live, not the date it lands.
"It's on the water" isn't an update. Ask your forwarder for milestone dates, the bill of lading and container numbers, and a revised ETA whenever one changes. The more of this arrives as data rather than prose, the less you have to chase.
A freight timeline on its own is just a nicer inbox. Its real value comes when a slipping ETA automatically moves your stock projection — so a two-week delay shows up immediately as a smaller days-of-cover figure, while there's still time to react.
You'll never make freight perfectly predictable. You can make it visible — and that's what turns a surprise into a decision.
ChainPilot runs all five systems for you — forecasting, reordering, cash flow, freight and quality — without the hire.
Join the waitlist
