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Why Fashion Runs on a Calendar (and What It Costs Suppliers Who Fall Behind It) 

Success in wholesale apparel depends on understanding the retail buying calendar. Buyers, operations teams, and finance teams all work against seasonal deadlines that affect ordering, shipping, inventory performance, and margin outcomes. 

This article walks through the full seasonal cycle, from market week through clearance, and explains what each stage means for suppliers operationally and financially. 

The fashion buying calendar revolves around a core tension that retailers need to commit to inventory months before customers decide what to buy. 

Because the full-price selling window is only 4 to 6 weeks, inventory turnover becomes the most important metric in the business. Products that move slowly tie up capital and increase the likelihood of markdowns later in the season. Markdowns are less an exception than a standard tool for clearing aging inventory and freeing up budget for future purchases. 

That freed-up budget feeds into what's called open-to-buy, the portion of a merchandise budget kept uncommitted so buyers can react to trends and changing demand throughout the season. As consumer behavior has grown harder to predict, retailers are investing more in real-time data and AI to make faster decisions while there's still time to influence outcomes. 

The whole cycle is a balancing act: commit early, sell at full price, liquidate what's left, and fund the next season's assortment. 

The retail fashion year runs in overlapping cycles, typically Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer. 

While timing varies by retailer, most follow the same sequence of stages, and understanding how those stages connect is often just as important as understanding the stages themselves. 

 can serve as a useful reference for independent retailers because it highlights periods of peak buyer activity. Independent retail purchasing often occurs earlier than traditional department store buying cycles.  

The chart highlights the interdependence of the fashion and apparel world, as each stage is dependent on the next. Decisions made during market week influence production timelines, shipping performance, and ultimately the amount of full-price selling time available once product reaches stores. Missed deadlines early in the process often create downstream challenges that become more difficult and expensive to correct. 

Once merchandise reaches the sales floor, the full-price selling period begins. For many seasonal fashion products, this window lasts approximately four to six weeks before promotional activity increases. Because the window is relatively short, suppliers have limited time to identify trends and respond before markdown pressure begins to build. Target and Walmart, for example, tend to believe the trends seen in the first ten days of sales were predictable for the rest of the cycle. Notably, these retailers would look at print and color top sellers to find consistencies or differences by region, as well as sell through percentages and return data by color and size. 

Many successful brands monitor POS data throughout the season rather than waiting for end-of-season reporting. 

 used SPS Analytics to monitor sell-through performance by location during a Macy's launch, allowing the team to make inventory decisions based on store-level demand. 

 has similarly used POS data to support assortment planning and regional demand forecasting. Together, these examples demonstrate how sales data can improve both pre-season planning and in-season inventory management. 

Suppliers that review POS data regularly can identify strong-performing styles, address underperforming inventory, and make informed decisions before markdown pressure increases. Some suppliers build flexibility into their production strategy by holding a portion of inventory as undyed greige goods, allowing them to adjust colorways and prints in response to early sales trends. In many cases, small adjustments made during the first few weeks of a season can have a greater impact than larger corrective actions taken after performance has already declined. 

Markdowns and Vendor-Funded Margin Support 

Not all markdowns serve the same purpose, and understanding the difference can help suppliers plan more effectively. Some markdowns are built into the retail calendar from the beginning of the season, while others occur in response to inventory performance. 

Planned markdowns support scheduled promotional events such as anniversary sales, holiday promotions, and friends-and-family events. Retailers typically account for these promotions during assortment and margin planning, making them an expected part of the selling cycle. 

Permanent markdowns occur when inventory does not sell as expected. Retailers reduce prices to clear inventory and create space for future assortments, with the timing and depth of those reductions often determined by sell-through performance. 

Markdown allowances are a common form of vendor-funded margin support. When products underperform, retailers may request financial assistance from suppliers to offset the cost of price reductions. These requests typically occur near the end of a season when inventory remains unsold and retailers are preparing for the next buying cycle. 

 suggests that markdown allowances continue to be a common practice across retail categories, particularly during periods of uncertain consumer demand. Suppliers should therefore treat markdown allowances as a potential cost of doing business rather than an unexpected exception. 

Monitoring sell-through performance early in the season can provide additional options before markdown discussions begin. Inventory transfers, targeted promotions, and other corrective actions may help improve results while there is still time to influence the outcome. The processes for auditing, disputing, and managing markdown-related deductions deserve a dedicated discussion and will be covered in a future article. 

Successful suppliers use the retail calendar as a planning framework. Rather than reacting to deadlines as they arise, they work backward from the in-store date and establish milestones throughout the season. This approach creates more time to address issues before they affect shipping performance, inventory availability, or sales results. 

The following timeline provides a practical example of how suppliers can align operational activities with key retail milestones: 

The fashion buying calendar helps suppliers determine when key decisions must happen. Teams that plan against those milestones are better positioned to meet retailer requirements, maximize full-price selling opportunities, and reduce end-of-season margin pressure. 

While every retailer operates on a slightly different schedule, the underlying principles remain consistent. Success depends on accurate item data, disciplined execution, and visibility into performance throughout the season. 

For retailer-specific guidance, including shipping requirements, routing instructions, and deduction policies, consult retailer guides on 

What Are Unloading Discrepancy Reports (UDRs) at KeHE? 

Success! You’ve packed, marked, and shipped your products to KeHE in accordance with the distributors’ guidelines, and now the only item left on your to-do list is to bask in the glow of a job well done. Unless, of course, you receive an unwelcome surprise in the form of an 

UDRs are generated by KeHE’s receiving department if there are any discrepancies between what was ordered and what was delivered, including shortages and overages, as well as damaged, mis-shipped, short-dated, and/or expired products. UDRs detail the products, quantities, and reasons behind the report and are sent to the supplier fax number or email address that receives the purchase order (PO).  

 to respond to a UDR, so it’s important not to get caught off guard once the clock starts counting down.  

Common Receiving Discrepancies at KeHE: Shortages and Overages 

. KeHE explicitly states that it will “not be liable for discrepancies between documentation signed at the point of origin by either its drivers or its third-party logistics drivers (including the 

) and KeHE’s separately documented case count.”  

So as a supplier, you must agree to rely on the case count confirmed at KeHE’s distribution center, not the BOL. UDRs are generated when that count is less than or more than the PO quantity. 

A shortage describes when KeHE’s case count finds that the amount of product received is less than the quantity provided in the PO for any SKU. For example, if a supplier invoices for 300 bottles of shampoo, but KeHE’s distribution center records that only 250 were received, KeHE will send a UDR.  

An overage describes when KeHE’s case count identifies that the supplier shipped 

 product than what was stated on the PO for any SKU. For example, if a supplier invoices for 300 bottles of shampoo, but KeHE’s distribution center records that it received 350, KeHE will send a UDR to start the process of what to do about the extra shampoo.  

What To Do When You Receive a UDR from KeHE 

If you receive a UDR from KeHE, take the following steps: 

What happens next will depend on the discrepancy and how KeHE responds. For example, if you receive a UDR for shortage but you’re able to provide a BOL and packing slip that note this shortage, KeHE should dismiss the UDR. But if the shortage discrepancy accurately reflects the situation, you should expect the PO price of the shorted products to be deducted from your next payment. 

If you miss the 48-hour response window, you can still dispute the contents of a UDR, but you will need to handle it in K-Solve. K-Solve is a dedicated financial account tool integrated into the KeHE CONNECT Supplier® portal (i.e., the primary online hub for all business interactions with KeHE). K-Solve contains records for all supplier payments and deductions and is where financial reconciliation occurs. 

If you’d like some support for the disputing process: 

The best way to deal with UDRs is to avoid having to deal with them altogether. Here are some tips that will help minimize their occurrence: 

Understanding Health, Beauty, and Wellness Subcategories: Cosmetics, OTC Drugs, Soap, Supplements, and Medical Devices 

____________________________________________________________________________________ 

Walk the health, beauty, and wellness (HBW) aisle and it reads like one department. A moisturizer, a pain reliever, a bar of soap, a jar of multivitamin gummies, all within a few feet of each other, like one category split into five distinct flavors.  

That impression isn’t accurate, however. Cosmetics, OTC drugs, soap, supplements, and medical devices are five separate regulatory categories that happen to share an aisle. Each one demands a different label, a different set of item attributes, and sometimes a different product identifier. What decides how a product gets regulated is intended use, set by the claims a brand makes and the ingredients it uses.  

For instance, a moisturizer is a cosmetic until it claims to treat acne, at which point it becomes a drug. Or a gummy is a supplement until it claims to cure a disease, at which point it is misbranded. 

Treat all of HBW as one bucket and the item data inherits that mistake. The result shows up as misbranding and FDA warning letters, as receiving discrepancies when the record does not match the product, and later as chargebacks and deductions. This piece gives a working model of all five subcategories, understanding that classification drives labeling, item data, identifiers, and every retailercompliance rule that follows. 

How Does Intended Use Decide the Product Category? 

Intended use is the answer to a simple question: What is this product for? Regulators read that answer from two places. 

First, the claims. Everything a brand says about the product counts, not just the label. The marketing copy, the website, the social posts, and even a customer-facing FAQ can all establish intended use. A claim made on Instagram can reclassify a product sitting on a shelf. 

Second, the ingredients. Certain active ingredients carry an intended use on their own. Put a recognized drug active in the formula and the product can be treated as a drug regardless of what the marketing says. 

Take two products that look nearly identical on the shelf. A deodorant masks odor, which is a cosmetic job, so a deodorant is a cosmetic. An antiperspirant reduces sweating, which changes how the body functions, so an antiperspirant is an OTC drug with an active ingredient and a Drug Facts panel. The same split shows up in shampoo: A basic shampoo cleans hair and is a cosmetic, while an anti-dandruff shampoo treats a condition and is a drug. 

A brand can move a product from cosmetic to drug without changing the formula, just by changing what it promises. The product is no safer or less safe than it was. It made a different claim, and the claim is what gives the product its classification.  

Here are the five classes that have legal definitions, laid out against the four things a supplier has to get right for each one: what puts a product in the class, how it has to be labeled, the item attributes the class demands, and the identifiers it carries. 

were long the lightest-touch category, judged mostly on ingredient honesty and accurate net contents. 

 ended that. Facility registration, product listing, safety substantiation, and adverse-event reporting now apply, so "cosmetic" no longer means low-obligation. It means a specific, and newly larger, set of obligations. 

 carry the heaviest data load of the five, because the monograph system dictates not just the label but the allowed actives and concentrations behind it. The clearest tell is the identifier: The day a product needs a 

 (NDC), it has stopped being a cosmetic or a supplement, whatever the marketing still says. 

 get wide latitude for structure-and-function claims and zero latitude for disease claims. A single sentence promising to treat a condition converts a lawful supplement into an unapproved, misbranded drug, with none of the monograph work that a real OTC drug would have done to earn the label. 

is carved out of the cosmetic category entirely, as long as it is genuinely soap: mostly an alkali salt of fatty acids, cleaning by virtue of those compounds, and sold for nothing but cleansing. Such products answer to the 

, not the FDA. The catch is how narrow that definition is. Add synthetic detergents or any claim beyond cleansing, like moisturizing, and it becomes a cosmetic; claim it treats acne and it becomes a drug. Most things labeled "soap" are not soap in the eyes of the law. 

 are a separate category entirely, covering diagnostics, at-home test kits, and wearables with medical function. What defines a device is that it works physically or mechanically rather than chemically in the body, and that triggers a separate track: a risk-based 

, a Unique Device Identifier (UDI) alongside the retail code, and a premarket pathway such as a 510(k). Moving from supplements into a test kit is entering your product into a new category. 

The Boundary Cases in Health, Beauty, and Wellness 

The trouble starts with words that sound like classifications but aren't, and with products that refuse to sit in one class: 

The trickier cases are when the physical inventory stays put but the classification shifts underneath it: 

In both directions the lesson is the same. Classification is not set one time at launch. It moves whenever the claims or the ingredients move, and the item data has to move with it. 

Why Classification Is an Item-Data Problem 

Up to this point the article has been about regulatory class. But a misclassification rarely costs you anything as a legal abstraction. It costs you when the product data is wrong, because the data is what retailers actually act on. Classification runs down a chain, and each link sets the next: 

If the item record says one thing and the product on the pallet is something else, that mismatch shows up at a specific point that costs you money: 

Each of these issues show up as chargebacks and deductions and eventually becomes a fee. And because the deduction usually arrives weeks after the shipment, it is often hard to trace back to the classification error that caused it. 

The Supplier Playbook in Health, Beauty, and Wellness 

The risk in health, beauty, and wellness comes from treating classification as a labeling detail handled late, rather than the decision that drives the item record. 

Five practices keep a product on the right side of that decision: 

The common thread is that classification is a living attribute of the product, not a one-time label. Suppliers who treat it that way keep their records accurate as products change. 

Getting the classification right is one thing, but carrying it cleanly to every retailer is another. That is the work 

 handles. It centralizes your product data, standardizes it to each trading partner's attribute requirements, validates it against their business rules to catch and correct errors, and delivers it in the format each partner expects. For a regulated product, that means the class-specific attributes a retailer requires get checked before the data goes out, rather than discovered as a problem at the dock. 

When a mismatch slips through anyway, the cost lands downstream as deductions and chargebacks. 

 works the other end of that problem, identifying, validating, and disputing those deductions to recover the dollars behind them. It doesn't stop at recovery, though. It surfaces the root causes, including the product-setup and data issues that misclassification creates, so the same deductions stop recurring.  

Getting the classification and the data right up front is what keeps a product on the shelf and out of the warning-letter and chargeback pile. 

Beyond the Warehouse: How Networked Operations Build Resilient Fulfillment

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While warehouse issues can be a source of supply chain disruption, they are also influenced by events well beyond the four walls of a facility. Disruptions can start upstream with a supplier delay, midstream with a carrier capacity issue, or even downstream with a change in retailer requirements. But by the time the impact shows up at the warehouse level, the issue may have already spread across multiple trading partners.  

Managing performance inside a warehouse facility is crucial, but this alone doesn’t translate to a resilient supply chain. In many cases, warehouse outcomes are shaped just as much by what happens between facilities, systems, and partners as what happens inside them. 

As supply chains have become more connected, resilience is less about how strong a single warehouse is and more about how well information and decisions move across the broader network. When warehouse operations, retailer connections, carrier relationships, or marketplace channels are managed in isolation, the result is often a system that reacts to disruption multiple times instead of once. 

In this article, we’ll look at why resilience depends less on individual facility performance and more on how effectively operations are connected across the broader supply chain network. 

Why the Warehouse Is the Wrong Unit of Analysis 

Historically, supply chain resilience was built around physical capacity. If demand increased or disruption occurred, a company may respond by adding inventory, increasing safety stock, or expanding warehouse capacity. 

That approach still matters in certain contexts. But it assumes that disruption can be absorbed at the site level. In practice, many of today’s disruptions don’t originate in the warehouse at all. 

Each of these events affects fulfillment, but none of them are contained within a single facility. For example, consider a supplier shipping to multiple major retailers. If Walmart updates routing or labeling requirements, that change does not stay isolated. It often requires updates to EDI processes, warehouse instructions, and transportation planning systems. If those systems are not connected, the supplier may end up implementing the same change multiple times across different teams and workflows. 

In addition, a warehouse can execute correctly and still be affected by decisions made elsewhere in the network. This is where the limits of warehouse-level resilience become visible. Adding inventory or labor inside a facility does not solve issues created by fragmented information or disconnected partner requirements. 

Visibility Is the Starting Line of Resilience, Not the Finish 

Visibility is a common goal in supply chain technology investments. Companies want to know where inventory is located, whether shipments are moving as planned, and when disruptions occur. That visibility is valuable, but information alone does not make your supply chain resilient. 

The challenge is that many organizations have visibility across individual systems without having visibility into their broader network. Warehouse management systems, transportation platforms, retailer portals, and supplier systems may all provide useful data, but that information often remains fragmented. Teams may see a disruption happening, but still not have a coordinated way to respond to it. 

True resilience against disruptions comes from turning visibility into action. When operational data flows across trading partners, organizations can identify disruptions earlier, align on corrective actions, and reduce the time between detection and response. This then allows companies to move from simply knowing what’s happening to ensuring the right people and systems can act on that information before disruptions spread further. 

Siloed Operations Make You React Late and Repeatedly 

Many supply chain disruptions become more expensive because organizations respond to the same problem multiple times in different parts of the business. 

A sourcing delay, for example, may first impact inventory planning. Later, it creates transportation adjustments. Eventually, it affects warehouse scheduling, retailer compliance, and customer service communications. When each function operates independently, every team discovers and reacts to the issue separately. 

This creates unnecessary costs and delays while increasing the likelihood of inconsistent decisions. One team may expedite freight while another reallocates inventory, both attempting to solve the same underlying problem without shared context.  

Connected operations reduce this duplication. When partners and internal teams work from a common set of information, disruptions can be addressed closer to their source. Instead of managing the consequences at multiple points throughout the supply chain, organizations can coordinate a response once and minimize downstream impact. 

The Shift From Cost to Resilience Is Already Happening 

For many years, supply chain investments were often evaluated through the lens of cost efficiency. The objective was to reduce transportation costs, maximize warehouse utilization, and minimize inventory carrying expenses.  

However, more frequent and large-scale disruptions have expanded that focus. For example, the 

 exposed how quickly global supply chains can become constrained when suppliers, manufacturers, transportation providers, and retailers experience disruptions simultaneously. Companies that optimized heavily for efficiency often found themselves struggling to adapt when inventory shortages, labor constraints, and shifting consumer demand occurred at the same time. 

Organizations are increasingly recognizing that the lowest-cost network is not always the most resilient one. The ability to adapt quickly to changing market conditions, retailer requirements, labor shortages, or transportation constraints has become a strategic priority. 

Network Scale and Connectivity Are Key Differentiators 

Warehouse performance and resilience isn’t isolated to a single node or location. Receiving schedules depend on suppliers and carriers, while outbound shipments depend on retailer requirements and transportation capacity. In addition, inventory availability depends on accurate data flowing across multiple systems and trading partners.  

As a result, the resilience of a warehouse is often influenced by the strength of the network around it. Warehouses operating within highly connected supply chain ecosystems typically have better access to shipment data, inventory information, retailer requirements, and partner communications. This allows teams to identify potential issues earlier and make operational adjustments before disruptions impact fulfillment. 

On the other hand, in a disconnected environment, warehouse teams often learn about changes or issues late and must react after operations have already been affected. In a connected network, information can flow more quickly across trading partners, helping warehouses adjust labor plans, inventory allocation, receiving schedules, and fulfillment priorities before disruptions escalate.  

Ultimately, resilient fulfillment is not built solely through warehouse capacity or operational efficiency. It is built through the connections that allow warehouses, suppliers, carriers, retailers, and marketplaces to operate as part of a coordinated network rather than a collection of independent facilities. 

Build Resilience with the SPS Commerce Network 

 helps organizations improve fulfillment performance through connected trading partner relationships, network visibility, and scalable supply chain collaboration. Powered by more than 300,000 trading relationships and hundreds of millions of transactions each year, the SPS Network provides the scale and intelligence needed to help businesses adapt as supply chain conditions change. 

Best Supply Chain Management Software: How the Top Approaches Compare 

Every vendor selling supply chain software promises the same thing: automate your orders, cut manual work, get your team out of spreadsheets. The pitch sounds identical across the board, which makes the best supply chain management software hard to spot from a features list alone. The real differences show up after the contract is signed, in how fast you start trading with a new retailer and how much manual work is still on your plate six months later. 

If you sell into retailers, distributors, or grocers, supply chain software usually means a way to exchange 

 (EDI) documents, like purchase orders and invoices, with the partners you sell to. Some options hand you the tools and expect you to build every connection yourself. Others arrive already connected. This guide walks through what separates those two paths, the questions to ask before you commit to either, and where each one tends to fit. 

What's the Real Difference Between Supply Chain Software Options? 

Most comparisons rank features that have already converged across vendors: order automation, invoice automation, and real-time visibility. The real distinction lies elsewhere, in whether the tool arrives connected to your retailers or arrives empty and waits for you to build every connection yourself. 

A point solution or an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) module gives you the infrastructure. You still build, test, and maintain every trading partner connection, and you carry the work of tracking each retailer's changing requirements. A network-based provider arrives with many of those connections already built, and with compliance knowledge already in place, because thousands of other suppliers are already running on the same maps against the same retailers. 

Two numbers capture most of what matters here: how fast you can start trading with a new retailer, and how much manual work is left over after you go live. The table, the case studies, and the decision framework below all come back to those two questions. 

What Questions Should You Ask Before You Choose Supply Chain Software? 

Six questions separate a tool that looks good in a demo from one that holds up once you've added your tenth retailer. They sit one level above the 

 you'd use once you've already settled on an approach. These six are about which approach to choose in the first place. 

How Do Point Solutions, ERP Modules, Portals, and Networks Compare? 

Each approach has a legitimate use case: 

 No single one of these approaches is wrong for every business. A supplier with two stable retailers and an IT team that wants ownership may be well served by an ERP module. The needs change as retailer count and requirement complexity grow, which is where the next two sections come in. For independent diligence on EDI-specific vendors, 

How Much Faster Is Onboarding With a Connected Network? 

After a period of acquisitions, apparel manufacturer Fruit of the Loom found itself managing five separate EDI systems, and onboarding a new retailer was taking up to six months. After consolidating onto 

, that timeline dropped to six weeks, because the connections and compliance knowledge for those retailers already existed on the network. 

The effect shows up at a different scale for 3PL providers. 

, a national 3PL, had testing and mapping cycles that ran up to twelve weeks for each new trading partner. After moving onto the SPS network, new trading partners go live in a matter of hours instead of weeks, because the integration work for those partners has typically already been done for someone else on the network. 

Neither of those numbers is the typical case; they're what's possible when most of the integration work has already happened before you start. A useful benchmark for the typical case: suppliers onboarding a new retailer through a full-service network commonly go live in two to three weeks, roughly half the time of a self-managed integration. 

How Much Manual Work Can You Eliminate? 

Speed answers one half of the equation. The other is what happens to your team's time after go-live. 

 integrated its highest-volume retail customers' EDI orders and invoices directly with its SYSPRO ERP through SPS Fulfillment, automating order and invoice processing that had previously required manual entry. The result was more than 780 hours of staff time saved in the first year, along with improved order accuracy, time the company redirected toward other projects instead of repetitive data entry. 

Every order entered, exception researched, or document re-keyed by hand is a cost. A network absorbs that cost once across its entire supplier base instead of billing each supplier separately for the same fix. 

Why Does a Network's Advantage Grow Over Time? 

The stakes for getting this wrong are concrete. Walmart's On-Time In-Full (OTIF) and Supplier Quality Excellence Program (SQEP) compliance programs charge suppliers 3% of the value of any shipment that misses thresholds like 90% on-time and 95% in-full delivery. SQEP adds separate penalties for: 

Every other major retailer runs some version of the same scorecard. The 

 walks through each phase in more detail. 

Retailer requirements don't stay still, either. Walmart updates its packaging and labeling guide twice a year, and every other major retailer revises its EDI specifications or vendor guide on its own schedule, usually with little warning. 

With a point solution or an ERP module, each of those changes becomes your project. Someone on your team has to notice it, update the mapping, retest, and double-check the fix before the next shipment goes out. On a network, the same change gets absorbed once and applied across every supplier connected to that retailer. 

This is also where a network's transaction volume starts to pay for itself. A network sees the same kinds of document errors and exceptions recur across thousands of trading relationships, so a problem your business hits for the first time has often already been seen and resolved somewhere else on the network. That history is what lets a network catch a recurring issue before it becomes a chargeback, instead of after. 

Which Approach Is Right for Your Business? 

A network isn't the right fit for every supplier. A business selling to two stable retailers, with an IT team that wants to own the integration and the bandwidth to keep up with their specific requirements, may be well served by an ERP module or a managed point solution.  

If you recognize your business in the second description, ask whether the retailers you need to reach are already on the 

, and how much of the compliance work that network has already absorbed on its customers' behalf, so your team isn't troubleshooting a retailer's spec change and can focus instead on moving the business forward. 

Software that arrives connected gets you trading faster and leaves less manual work on your plate than software you have to connect yourself, and that gap widens with every retailer you add. 

, and what onboarding actually looks like for your business.

How To Submit and Appeal a Deduction Dispute in UNFI’s Dispute Center 

 recently launched a new online platform for suppliers of natural products to manage deduction disputes. Aptly named the 

, the portal lets natural suppliers review deductions and submit and track disputes in one place. 

UNFI suppliers are organized into two groups: natural and conventional. Natural suppliers serve wellness-focused retailers like Whole Foods and Sprouts Farmers Market, while conventional suppliers work with more mainstream grocery stores like Shoppers and Cub. Formerly, all deduction disputes by both 

 UNFI suppliers were submitted via email. Thus, this is new territory in need of an introduction and a how-to guide. 

The UNFI Dispute Center gives natural suppliers a place to: 

Which Deduction Types Can Be Disputed in the UNFI Dispute Center? 

UNFI refers to the Dispute Center as the “central hub” for natural disputes, but there are limitations to its scope.  

According to UNFI, the following dispute types cannot be processed through the Dispute Center and must be handled via email: 

How Can I Access the UNFI Dispute Center? 

You must have an active myUNFI portal account with an up-to-date profile to be able to access the Dispute Center. Once you’re logged into your myUNFI account, you should see a blue button on the left side of the screen that says 

. Simply select the button to access the portal.  

 If you still need to complete your myUNFI enrollment or need help with your account, you can reach out to 

How Do I Submit Natural Deduction Disputes in the UNFI Dispute Center? 

All natural deduction disputes start with either a payment or an adjustment within the portal. Learning how the two different numbers are formatted in the UNFI Dispute Center is the first step to submitting a dispute.  

1. Learn How To Read Adjustment and Payment Numbers  

have three different sections that communicate distinct attributes. 

2. Locate the Adjustment or Payment Number in the Dispute Center 

You have a few options for locating a payment or adjustment within the UNFI Dispute Center: 

If you know your payment or adjustment number, you can go to the search bar at the top right of the home screen and select whether it’s a payment or an adjustment under 

 and then enter the full number (e.g., 9876543–111–EAST, EAST–9876543) before selecting the 

If you don’t know your payment or adjustment number, you can go to the search bar and select whether it’s a payment or an adjustment under 

. This will open a search window that allows you to search according to multiple criteria, including date ranges, amounts, document types, and status.  

will allow you to see all payments from the last 30 days. You can then locate and select the payment associated with the dispute you want to submit. 

 column has sections for adjustments and payments organized by the last 30, 60, and 90 days.  

3. Submit Your Natural Deduction Dispute(s) 

You have multiple options to choose from when submitting a dispute. You can submit one dispute at a time from either a payment or an adjustment number, or you can dispute in bulk. 

How To Submit a Natural Deduction Dispute From a Payment Number

How To Submit a Natural Deduction Dispute From an Adjustment Number

How To Submit Multiple Natural Deduction Disputes (Bulk Submissions) 

If you want to submit more than one dispute at a time, you can fill out a standardized CSV template with dispute details and then upload it through the Dispute Center.  

How Do I Appeal a Dispute in the UNFI Dispute Center? 

Most UNFI deduction disputes are resolved within 35–45 days. If the results of your deduction dispute don’t turn out the way you hoped (e.g., it’s denied or only partially repaid), you might have a second chance. However, you need to be aware of the following criteria: 

Automate Deduction Disputes with SPS Commerce 

There’s an easier way to manage deduction disputes at UNFI. 

 automatically identifies, validates, disputes, and helps prevent revenue loss across major retailers and distributors, combining advanced automation with trading-partner-specific expertise. 

Want real numbers specific to your account? Get a 

 to see how much SPS Revenue Recovery can get you back. 

What Legacy EDI Costs UK and Irish Suppliers in Chargebacks and Growth

For UK and Irish suppliers managing retail trading relationships.

 Most UK and Irish suppliers using EDI aren't dealing with broken systems. They're dealing with familiar ones, and familiarity is doing real financial damage. Manual reconciliation, reactive compliance management, and slow partner onboarding are costing suppliers in retailer chargebacks, headcount, and shelf position. This article breaks down where legacy EDI processes typically fail, what the hidden cost structure looks like, and what supply chain automation delivers in practice.

How EDI for Suppliers Becomes a Liability as Your Business Scales

Legacy EDI for suppliers hits a ceiling. Transactions keep flowing. The business requirements don't stay still. Many suppliers built their EDI processes years ago around a smaller trading partner roster, a single retail channel, and a team that had capacity to handle exceptions manually. The setup functioned, so no one changed it.

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SupplierWiki curates detailed articles to help suppliers win at retail.

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