In this article, learn about:
Why OTIF performance becomes harder to maintain during peak season and how retailer requirements affect suppliers
The warning signs that can help suppliers catch late deliveries, short shipments, and compliance issues before they escalate
How to monitor shipment performance, document exceptions, and prepare teams
Peak season puts months of supply chain planning to the test. For suppliers, one of the biggest worries is keeping on-time, in-full (OTIF) performance steady. Retailers rely on accurate, timely shipments, and their compliance expectations won’t lessen when holiday demand rises.
An inventory discrepancy or inaccurate shipment record can move straight past one late order and into retailer scorecards, extra administrative work, and expensive deductions. Luckily, there are ways to anticipate where a shipment might fail while there’s still time to fix it.
Why Does OTIF Performance Decline During Peak Season?
OTIF measures whether suppliers deliver the quantities retailers expect within the required delivery window. The calculation varies by retailer, but the goal is consistent: the right products, in the right quantities, where and when they’re needed.
Peak season asks the same processes to handle more volume, tighter schedules, and more frequent changes to inventory and orders. Three pressure points tend to show up first:
Inventory accuracy: A supplier may have enough product across its network but still fall short if it isn’t at the shipping location. A gap between physical stock and system records can create a short shipment before the order reaches the dock.
Transportation: Carriers may have limited capacity, appointments can be harder to secure, and a delay at one facility can ripple into the next pickup.
Seasonal labor: Temporary employees may be less familiar with retailer shipping requirements, electronic data interchange (EDI) procedures, or the documentation an order needs.
These issues often overlap. An inventory discrepancy can delay picking, which delays loading, which puts a carrier appointment at risk, so several failures may sit behind a single scorecard miss.
Related Reading: How to Improve Your OTIF Performance
Do Retailers Change OTIF Requirements During Peak Season?
Retailers typically keep measuring delivery performance against established requirements, though targets, exceptions, and enforcements vary.
What Are the Walmart OTIF Peak Season Requirements?
Walmart measures on-time delivery, collect readiness, and in-full fulfillment separately.
Its published targets have included:
Measure | Published goal | What it measures |
Prepaid on-time | 90% | Cases delivered within the required arrival window when the supplier manages transportation |
Collect-ready | 98% | Cases available for pickup per the retailer’s requirements when freight is collect |
In-full | 95% | Cases received compared with the quantities ordered, under Walmart’s scoring rules |
Because the measures are separate, a supplier can do well in one and struggle in another. Complete orders can miss the on-time target because of appointment scheduling, and on-time deliveries can fall short if the distribution center receives fewer cases than ordered.
Suppliers can investigate trends and individual purchase orders (POs) in the OTIF scorecard in Retail Link, and should review it with current routing documentation before peak season hits.
Walmart is a useful example because its measures are well documented, but every retailer is different. Target, for example, has its own supplier performance and shipment accuracy requirements.
Suppliers can keep a current record of each retailer’s windows, routing procedures, and deduction policies, drawn from the vendor agreement, compliance manual, or supplier portal.
Related Reading: Walmart’s OTIF Performance Metrics
Where Do OTIF Failures Happen During Peak Season?
OTIF problems often start well before a shipment reaches the retailer. Four operational areas deserve attention when volume rises:
Inventory accuracy and short shipments: Consider a supplier that accepts a PO for 1,000 cases. Its system shows enough stock, but the warehouse finds only 940 at picking. The order ships 60 cases short unless the gap is resolved, or the retailer approves a change. Suppliers can prioritize cycle counts for high-volume stock-keeping units (SKUs) and check available-to-promise quantities before accepting orders.
Carrier capacity and delivery appointments: A complete order can still miss its window if a carrier arrives late, misses a pickup, or can’t get a distribution center (DC) appointment. For prepaid shipments, suppliers can double-check appointments and track loads. For collect shipments, the focus shifts to pickup readiness and documenting anything that blocks a scheduled collection.
EDI and advance ship notice (ASN) accuracy: An ASN gives retailers shipment details such as quantities and packaging. If one reports 500 cases and the shipment holds 480, receiving may need to investigate even when transportation ran on schedule. Timing rules can be strict. Amazon vendors must submit an ASN within 30 minutes of the shipment leaving or six hours before it arrives. Walmart’s scorecard tracks ASN performance separately from OTIF, so not every ASN error becomes an OTIF failure.
Routing-guide adherence: Routing guides set procedures for scheduling transportation, requesting pickups, and meeting deadlines, and teams processing more orders or covering weekends can miss them. A routing request that arrives after the deadline can create a compliance issue even when the shipment is ready, so suppliers can reconfirm requirements and assign clear owners.
What Are the Early Warning Signs of an OTIF Failure?
Retailer scorecards show past performance, but they don’t always give enough notice to prevent a miss. A shortage caught before picking leaves more options than one found during loading, and an unconfirmed appointment is easier to fix days ahead than on delivery day. Suppliers can watch for:
Inventory discrepancies on high-volume SKUs, which risk short shipments
Unconfirmed carrier pickups or appointments, which risk missed windows and late deliveries
ASN validation errors or missing acknowledgments, which risk receiving discrepancies
PO changes not reflected in warehouse records, which risk wrong quantities or dates
Repeated delays at the same distribution center, which risk recurring on-time failures
These signs work best when someone owns the review, and during peak, daily checks of high-risk orders can beat weekly reports. It’s wise to keep a shared exception log that records the PO, retailer, issue, owner, next action, and deadline. Doing so will provide warehouse, transportation, and customer service teams with the same data and shipments needing attention.
Who Is Responsible When a Peak-Season Shipment Arrives Late?
When a shipment misses its window, responsibility isn’t always the carrier’s, because freight terms shape who arranges transportation.
Under prepaid freight, the supplier generally manages transportation. A carrier delay can still leave the supplier exposed, since Walmart fines the supplier rather than the carrier.
Under collect freight, the retailer or its carrier generally arranges pickup, but the supplier must still have products ready on time. If a carrier misses a pickup, suppliers can record when the shipment was ready, the scheduled pickup time, and any exception filed through the retailer’s process. For Walmart, that means following current ticketing procedures instead of assuming a carrier delay removes supplier accountability.
Good records also help when a deduction doesn’t match what happened. Useful ones include original POs, appointment records, bill of lading (BOL), proof of delivery, ASN records, and retailer transportation tickets.
Related Reading: OTIF Best Practices
How Can Suppliers Protect Their OTIF Performance Throughout Peak Season?
Readiness checks shouldn’t stop once holiday shipments begin, because inventory, carrier availability, and order requirements keep changing.
A recurring rhythm helps suppliers respond before a problem reaches multiple shipments:
Before peak: Resolve preventable issues in inventory accuracy, carrier capacity, routing requirements, and EDI testing.
Daily during peak: Review at-risk POs, inventory shortages, unconfirmed appointments, and ASN errors.
Weekly during peak: Look for patterns by retailer or distribution center that single-shipment reviews can miss.
After peak: Review scorecard results, posted deductions, and root causes to improve next year’s planning.
The goal would be to give every exception an owner and a next step.
Peak-Season OTIF Readiness Checklist
Suppliers can use this checklist before the first surge and revisit it through the holiday season:
Readiness check | What to verify | Suggested owner |
Inventory and POs | High-volume SKUs are cycle-counted, discrepancies are resolved, and order changes match warehouse records | Inventory or order management |
Carriers and appointments | Transportation coverage and appointments are booked, and deadlines are monitored | Transportation or logistics |
ASN accuracy | Recent ASNs match shipment records, and transmission errors are resolved | EDI or IT team |
Routing compliance | Current routing guides and request deadlines have been reviewed | Compliance or transportation |
Exceptions and documentation | High-risk shipments have an owner and escalation path, and shipment records are retained | Operations or compliance |
A shared worksheet with an owner, status, due date, and supporting evidence keeps the checklist easy to maintain across departments.
Related Reading: Holiday Peak Season 2026: Supplier Readiness Checklist
Frequently Asked Questions
How to avoid OTIF chargebacks during peak season?
Suppliers can reduce exposure by improving inventory accuracy, booking transportation, meeting routing deadlines, and monitoring orders for exceptions before shipment. Scorecard trends and supporting documentation help too.
Can suppliers dispute an OTIF chargeback caused by a carrier delay?
Depending on the retailer’s policies and the shipment, they may be able to. Appointment records, pickup timestamps, proof of delivery, and transportation tickets help show what occurred, though eligibility, deadlines, and evidence requirements vary. The Supply Chain Source covers how to dispute Walmart OTIF chargebacks.
Is an ASN error the same as an OTIF failure?
No. An ASN error involves inaccurate, missing, or late shipment documentation, while OTIF measures delivery timeliness and order completeness. ASN errors can contribute to receiving problems, but retailers may score them separately.
Want More Resources on Retailer Compliance?
Strong OTIF performance takes ongoing attention to inventory, transportation, documentation, and retailer requirements. For more guidance, explore The Supply Chain Source, with articles, webinars, cheat sheets, and e-books on OTIF, retailer compliance, and EDI.