Net terms
Payment due a set number of days after invoice — net 30, net 60, net 90. The brand ships now and is paid later.
What goes wrong: The clock usually starts at INVOICE, not delivery. A shipment that takes three weeks turns net 60 into net 39 of actual float, and nobody tells you — it just arrives as a cash-flow problem.
See also: Factoring · Purchase order
MOQ
Minimum order quantity — the smallest order a brand will accept, per style, per order or per delivery.
What goes wrong: An MOQ set per STYLE and an MOQ set per ORDER are wildly different asks, and the difference is rarely written down. A buyer who agreed to one and is held to the other has a dispute on their first order.
Case pack
How many units come in one sealed case. Orders are usually written in cases, not units.
What goes wrong: A buyer who orders "12" and receives twelve CASES has an inventory problem and a cash problem in the same delivery. Every quantity on an order should say which unit it is counting.
Purchase order
The buyer's formal commitment to buy: what, how many, at what price, delivered when and where. Abbreviated PO.
What goes wrong: A PO is a contract, not a request. Shipping something that differs from it — a substitution, a short ship, an early delivery — is what a deduction is taken against later.
See also: Deduction · Substitution
Deduction
Money a retailer withholds from an invoice for something they say went wrong: a late delivery, a short ship, a damaged case, a missing label.
What goes wrong: Deductions are the quiet margin killer, because each one is too small to fight and they never stop. The defence is evidence at the time — the PO, the ASN, the delivery receipt — not an argument six months later.
See also: Chargeback · Purchase order
Chargeback
In wholesale, a penalty a retailer charges for breaking their routing or compliance rules. In payments the same word means something else entirely — a consumer disputing a card charge.
What goes wrong: The two meanings collide constantly. A retail chargeback is a compliance fine; a card chargeback is a reversed payment with a bank behind it. Confusing them in a conversation about money wastes an hour every time.
Substitution
Shipping something other than exactly what the purchase order asked for — a different size, colour or pack — usually because the ordered item is short.
What goes wrong: An unapproved substitution is a deduction waiting to happen, however reasonable it looked in the warehouse. The buyer agreed to a specific line on a specific PO, and "we sent something similar" is the definition of not that.
See also: Purchase order · Deduction
Consignment
The brand ships goods but keeps ownership until they sell. The retailer pays for what sold and returns the rest.
What goes wrong: It looks like a low-risk way in and it moves ALL the inventory risk onto the brand, who is now financing stock sitting on somebody else's shelf. It is a cash-flow decision, not a sales decision.
Sell-through
The share of delivered units that actually sold, over a period. Sold ÷ received.
What goes wrong: It is the only number that predicts a reorder, and most brands never see it because the retailer holds it. Asking for it in the terms — not after a bad season — is the whole game.
Trade show
An industry event where brands show their line and write orders with buyers in person. Still where a great deal of wholesale is opened.
What goes wrong: Selling at a show can create a sales-tax obligation in that state for the whole year, and the return on the booth is made in the two weeks afterwards, not at the table.
See also: Nexus · Purchase order ·
Open →Fill rate
The share of an order actually shipped against what was ordered. Shipped ÷ ordered, in units or lines.
What goes wrong: A low fill rate is the deduction you have not received yet. Retailers track it, and a short ship is charged back whether or not anybody mentions it at the time.
See also: Deduction · Substitution
Lead time
The time between placing an order and receiving it. It sets when you must reorder and how much stock you must hold in between.
What goes wrong: Lead time is quoted by the supplier and paid for by you. A lead time that quietly stretches by two weeks is a stock-out that arrives as a lost account.
See also: Reorder point · MOQ ·
Open →Reorder point
The inventory level at which you place the next order so it lands before you run out: daily sales × lead time, plus safety stock.
What goes wrong: It is a number, not a feeling. Reordering "when it looks low" is how the best-selling line is the one that is out.
Terms sheet
The summary of commercial terms attached to a wholesale relationship: pricing, MOQ, payment terms, MAP, freight, returns.
What goes wrong: Every term missing from it is decided later, by whoever has more leverage at that moment. The sheet exists so that neither side has to remember what was agreed.
See also: Net terms · MOQ · MAP
Territory
The geographic or account area a rep or distributor is responsible for, and is credited for orders from.
What goes wrong: Two reps who both believe an account is in their territory is a commission dispute with an honest party on each side. Territories are recorded, or they are argued.
See also: Account ownership · Commission ·
Open →Stockist
A retailer or account that carries and sells a brand's products. A brand's stockist list is its wholesale footprint.
What goes wrong: A stockist that stopped reordering is still on the list. The list that matters is the one with the last order date on it.
See also: Buyer · Sell-through