Guide to Negotiated Packaging Freight Allowances

Most packaging buyers obsess over unit price, then get quietly clipped by freight. I’ve seen a quote for a simple corrugated mailer look $0.06 cheaper per unit, only to lose $420 on shipping for a 4,000-piece order from a plant in Columbus, Ohio. That kind of thing still irritates me, honestly. It’s why a guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances matters so much: the freight line can swing your landed cost more than a box price cut ever will, especially when the lane runs 220 miles and the carrier adds a $65 fuel surcharge.

Freight usually sits one line below product cost on the quote, which makes it easy to overlook and hard to challenge. A sharper guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances helps brands, wholesalers, e-commerce sellers, procurement teams, and packaging buyers compare suppliers on equal ground, not on whichever number happens to look best at first glance. I’ve sat through enough quote reviews at corrugated plants in Ohio and folding carton facilities in the Midwest to know how often the “best” quote turns out to be the one with the sneakiest freight assumptions, like a $0.08-per-unit product price hiding a $280 LTL move.

In practice, this part of sourcing gets misunderstood because freight allowances look like an accounting detail until the invoices start piling up. They shape cash flow, pricing strategy, and the level of trust between buyer and supplier, especially when corrugated, folding carton, and mailer orders keep repeating month after month. And if you’ve ever had an AP clerk call you about a mismatch on a freight credit after 4 p.m. on a Friday, you know how quickly a small detail can become a whole mood, especially when the invoice shows a $125 accessorial fee from a Chicago-to-Indianapolis shipment that should have been a simple dock delivery.

Guide to Negotiated Packaging Freight Allowances: Why It Matters

Packaging freight costs hide in plain sight. A box may be priced at $0.42, but if the freight charge adds $0.11 per unit and fuel surcharges push that to $0.14, the “cheap” box is no longer cheap. I’ve watched buyers save 3% on carton pricing and lose 8% on delivered cost because nobody pushed hard on the freight terms. That is the kind of math that makes me want to flip a quote sheet over and start again, especially when a 5,000-piece run from a Dallas-area converter turns into a $710 freight bill after fuel, liftgate, and appointment charges.

A guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances starts with plain language. It is a pre-agreed freight credit, discount, or reimbursed shipping structure tied to packaging orders. Sometimes the supplier deducts the allowance on the invoice. Sometimes it appears as a freight-inclusive quote. Sometimes it lands as a post-shipment credit after pallet count is verified. The mechanics vary, but the purpose stays the same: reduce what you actually pay to get packaging to your dock, whether that dock is in Atlanta, Nashville, or a warehouse in northern New Jersey.

The buyers who use these terms most often are the ones moving volume: consumer brands, wholesalers, subscription-box businesses, contract packers, retail packaging teams, and procurement groups managing repeat orders of custom printed boxes, mailers, inserts, or branded packaging. If you order 500 units once a year, the gains may be modest. If you order 5,000 to 50,000 units every month, freight terms can alter the entire sourcing conversation. I’ve seen that especially in facilities running die-cutting, litho-lamination, and rigid box finishing in the Midwest, where repeat lanes from Chicago, St. Louis, and Milwaukee make a real difference.

I learned that firsthand during a client meeting in Ohio where a fulfillment director insisted all cartons came from the “cheapest” supplier. We pulled twelve months of invoices and found the supposed low-cost vendor was charging $1,980 more in freight than the next two competitors combined across 28 shipments. The buyer wasn’t overpaying on paper; he was overpaying in transit. That’s the kind of blind spot a strong guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances helps correct, especially when the packaging is being produced in a facility near Dayton but shipped into a warehouse in eastern Pennsylvania.

The business case is straightforward, but the impact reaches farther than people expect. Better freight terms help stabilize budgets, smooth month-to-month spend, and make supplier comparisons fairer. They also give procurement teams a cleaner number for forecasting. If your allowance is fixed at $180 per truckload or 7% off zone freight, you can plan around it. If shipping is a moving target, the budget turns into guesswork. And nobody enjoys explaining guesswork to finance; I certainly don’t, particularly when the monthly freight swing is $600 to $900 on a 12,000-unit replenishment order.

“We thought we were negotiating packaging. We were really negotiating landed cost.” That was a plant manager’s line to me after he saw a 14% swing between two similar quotes for the same corrugated shipper. He said it with the exhausted look of a man who had just realized the spreadsheet had been lying to him for months, and the freight credits from a supplier in Toledo had been offset by $92 in repeated re-delivery fees.

One more thing most people get wrong: freight allowances are not just about saving on shipping. They influence replenishment timing, minimum order quantities, and the way suppliers structure margins inside the quote. Once you know how to read the numbers, the room for negotiation becomes easier to spot. And once you start seeing it, you can’t unsee it, which is both useful and mildly annoying when a simple $0.03-per-unit “discount” comes with a $240 freight floor.

How Negotiated Packaging Freight Allowances Work

At a basic level, the supplier quotes packaging pricing plus freight, then applies an allowance, credit, or waived charge based on the agreed terms. In a clean setup, you get three visible pieces: unit price, freight method, and allowance rule. In a messy setup, freight is bundled into the product price, and nobody can tell whether the supplier is charging $0.08 or $0.18 per unit for the same lane. That is usually the point where someone says, “Wait, can we see that again?” and everybody pretends not to hear the room sigh, especially when the shipment is leaving a plant in Grand Rapids for a distribution center in Louisville.

The most common structures I see in a guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances are flat-rate allowances, percentage-based freight relief, minimum-order thresholds, zone-based terms, and freight-inclusive pricing. A flat allowance might be $150 off every palletized shipment over 3,000 pounds. A percentage-based term might reduce the freight line by 12% if annual spend clears $75,000. A zone-based setup might cover local deliveries inside 150 miles but leave longer lanes untouched. In one common arrangement, a supplier in the Carolinas will offer $0.15 per unit freight relief on 5,000 pieces, then reduce that to $0.09 per unit if the order drops below 2,500 pieces.

Here’s a simple comparison that comes up often in quote reviews:

Option	Packaging Price	Freight Charge	Allowance	Net Landed Cost
Sticker freight	$1,240	$310	$0	$1,550
Negotiated allowance	$1,285	$310	-$165	$1,430
Freight-inclusive quote	$1,390	$0	Included	$1,390

That table shows why the lowest product price is not always the best deal. A quote with a higher unit cost can still beat the field once freight is controlled. I’ve seen that happen on retail packaging jobs where the cartons were identical, but one supplier had a better truck routing arrangement out of their Midwest plant in Indiana. The difference came down to how they loaded, scheduled, and billed, with one vendor using three pallet stacks at 84 cartons each while another wasted space at 62 cartons per pallet.

Freight allowances usually show up on invoices and purchase orders in four places: as a separate freight line, as a credit memo after delivery, as an inclusive freight rate inside the unit price, or as a rebate tied to monthly volume. Buyers should verify whether the credit is applied before or after tax. That detail matters because a freight allowance applied after tax can create a larger cash outflow than expected, especially on larger replenishment orders like a 7,500-piece corrugated run priced at $3,250 before freight.

These terms can also be tied to volume, delivery frequency, lane, pallet count, or annual spend. A supplier might offer stronger terms if you take two full pallets every month instead of six small drop shipments. Another may open better rates if you can shift from mixed SKUs to more uniform case counts. It is logistics math, not magic, and a warehouse in Phoenix receiving 12 full pallets monthly will usually get better treatment than a site asking for four parcel shipments every Tuesday.

I once sat in on a negotiation where the buyer was focused on a 4% freight credit, but the supplier was willing to go to 6% if the customer accepted a fixed Monday-Wednesday delivery window. The buyer hated the idea at first. Then they realized the warehouse could absorb it, and the switch cut their accessorial charges by $1,200 a quarter. That is the sort of trade-off a practical guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances should push you to examine, especially when the carrier is charging $45 for every extra appointment change.

For related packaging sourcing work, teams often pair freight discussions with Custom Packaging Products review sessions so product specs and shipping terms are negotiated together, not in separate silos. That usually helps when a supplier in the Northeast is quoting 350gsm C1S artboard sleeves and a second vendor in Texas is quoting the same item with heavier board and a $90 lower freight floor.

For standards and shipping discipline, I often point clients to ISTA testing guidance at ista.org. If your packaging survives transit poorly, the freight allowance will not save you from claims, re-shipments, and wasted margin, especially on a 2,000-mile route with multiple transfers.

Key Factors That Shape Cost and Pricing

Freight pricing is not random. It is built from measurable inputs, and the smartest guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances makes those inputs visible. Distance is the obvious one. A delivery from Charlotte to Atlanta will almost never behave like a shipment from Shenzhen to Dallas. But distance alone does not explain the bill, especially when one lane is running 310 miles and another is crossing a port, a transload yard, and a final-mile carrier network.

Dimensional weight can be a quiet killer. A carton that is light but oversized may cost more to move than a denser package. Carrier class matters too. One plant I visited in southern California had beautiful packaging specs on paper, but the actual box footprint wasted an extra 18% of trailer volume because the carton was 1.5 inches taller than it needed to be. That small packaging design error added real money to every shipment, and the production manager was not thrilled when we pointed it out, especially after we measured the blank at 14.25 x 9.5 x 3.75 inches instead of the intended 14 x 9 x 2.75.

Pallet density changes the math as well. If you can fit 96 cartons per pallet instead of 72, your freight profile improves immediately. Material type matters too. Heavy-duty double-wall corrugate, molded pulp inserts, rigid set-up boxes, and thick SBS board all influence how product packaging stacks, compresses, and ships. A 350gsm C1S artboard mailer may look elegant, but if the packout creates dead air, you are paying to move empty space. That empty space is expensive, and it never sends a thank-you note, even if the finished mailer came off a sheetfed press in New Jersey with a soft-touch aqueous coating.

That is why a low unit price can still be expensive. A supplier may quote a beautiful number for a stock mailer and quietly make it back on freight because the cartons are bulky, the pallet count is inefficient, or the lane requires partial-load service. I’ve seen a packaging buyer celebrate a $0.03 reduction per unit, then spend $280 more per order because the supplier switched from zone-rated freight to a less favorable accessorial structure on a 6,000-piece run.

Supplier economics matter too. Two similar quotes are rarely built the same way. One manufacturer may have strong carrier contracts and plenty of freight margin to share. Another may run lean and protect every dollar. A third might be happy to offer a freight allowance on paper, then recover it through fuel surcharges, residential delivery fees, or minimum handling charges. The quote looks competitive until you compare the fine print, which is where the real trouble usually hides, especially with vendors shipping from Memphis, Louisville, or Harrisburg where lane density changes the final number.

That is where total landed cost becomes the only number that really counts. I tell clients to benchmark packaging orders by product cost, freight cost, order frequency, claims rate, and replenishment timing. Compare the complete delivered cost per 1,000 units, not just the per-box price. If you do not do that, you are comparing headlines instead of economics, like judging a 10,000-piece folding carton order by unit price alone instead of the $1,140 total freight spread over four shipments.

Here is a practical lens I use in supplier reviews:

• Product cost: what the box, insert, or mailer costs before shipping
• Freight charge: the actual carrier or delivered cost on the invoice
• Allowance value: the pre-agreed credit, discount, or rebate
• Accessorial exposure: liftgate, residential, re-delivery, detention, and fuel
• Claims and damage risk: replacement cost when packaging fails in transit

For sustainability-minded teams, freight also intersects with environmental targets. Shorter routes, better pallet density, and fewer split shipments can lower emissions. If your organization tracks packaging carbon impact, the EPA’s transport and climate resources at epa.gov are a useful reference point. Freight allowances are not an ESG program by themselves, but they often push behavior in the same direction: fewer trips, fuller loads, less waste, and fewer empty miles between distribution centers in Ohio and Georgia.

One client in the food sector showed me a comparison sheet that looked scientific but missed the point entirely. They had quoted eight suppliers, yet only one had true delivered-cost terms. The others buried freight in different ways. Once we normalized the data, the “lowest” vendor was actually the fourth-best. That experience reinforced a lesson I’ve seen for years: a strong guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances should always start with apples-to-apples benchmarking and a real route map, not just a spreadsheet with pretty conditional formatting.

Step-by-Step Guide to Negotiating Packaging Freight Allowances

If you want a practical guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances, begin with data. Not opinions. Not gut feel. Data. The cleanest negotiations happen when the buyer knows current freight spend, shipment frequency, order sizes, and surcharge patterns before the first supplier call. I know that sounds obvious, but you would be amazed how often people walk into pricing talks with a stack of feelings and one half-finished spreadsheet, usually missing the last three invoices from the supplier in Nashville.

Step 1: Audit your current freight history

Pull the last 6 to 12 months of invoices and sort them by lane, order size, carrier class, and accessorial charge. Look for repeat patterns. Are you sending four 800-pound shipments a month when one 3,200-pound consolidated load would do the job? Are rush orders costing you $75 to $150 each because planning is too loose? That audit usually reveals two or three places where an allowance can create immediate value, like a $175 monthly credit for moving from parcel to pallet on repeat SKUs.

Step 2: Request quote formats that separate the numbers

Ask every supplier for a quote that breaks out product cost, freight cost, and allowance terms. I have sat through enough supplier negotiations to know that vague quotes are rarely accidental. Clear quote structure forces accountability. It also gives procurement a fair basis for comparing custom printed boxes, retail packaging, and branded packaging offers from different suppliers. If a supplier refuses to separate those pieces, my eyebrows go up immediately, especially if the quote comes from a facility in Michigan and the freight line is just one blended number.

Here is the kind of quote logic I prefer:

1. Base unit price for the packaging item
2. Freight method and lane designation
3. Allowance rule, if any
4. Accessorial responsibility
5. Credit timing and invoice treatment

Step 3: Use your operational strengths

Volume forecasts help, but they are not the only bargaining chip. Consolidated shipments, predictable reorders, flexible delivery windows, and palletized receiving can all improve terms. If you can receive on a 48-hour notice and accept full-pallet drops, you are helping the supplier lower handling costs. That creates room for a better freight allowance, particularly if the supplier is loading in a 53-foot trailer from a plant in Indiana and can fill 24 pallets instead of 17.

One of the strongest negotiations I witnessed came from a cosmetics brand that moved its order cadence from weekly small shipments to biweekly pallet builds. They did not ask for a huge price cut. They asked for a freight allowance that reflected the improved loading efficiency. The supplier agreed because the route economics were better. Both sides won, and the brand reduced freight spend by $860 per month on a 10,000-unit run.

Step 4: Get the terms in writing

This sounds obvious, but I still see verbal freight promises in email threads with no formal attachment. Do not do that. Spell out eligibility, threshold, carrier responsibility, claim process, and payment timing. If the allowance only applies above 2,500 pounds, write that down. If it excludes Alaska, Hawaii, or residential deliveries, write that down too. If the supplier can revise the allowance after 90 days, write that down before anyone signs, even if the document is only a two-page term sheet from a Minneapolis sales rep.

A clean term sheet should answer these questions:

• What minimum spend or volume qualifies?
• Is the allowance per shipment, per month, or per quarter?
• Does it apply before tax?
• Who pays accessorials and fuel?
• How are damaged shipments handled?

Step 5: Pilot the agreement and verify the invoice

Use a pilot order if possible. Then compare the actual invoice total against the expected landed cost. I recommend reviewing the first two invoice cycles closely, not just the first one. Sometimes a credit lands properly on shipment one and then disappears on shipment two because someone in accounting interpreted the contract differently. That happens more often than people admit. I’ve even seen an allowance coded correctly in the PO system and then ignored by AP because the invoice came in with a carrier note nobody bothered to read, including a $38 appointment surcharge that should have been waived.

Timeline-wise, a simple negotiation may take 5 to 10 business days if shipment data is ready and the supplier already has standard terms. A more complex agreement can take 2 to 4 weeks, especially if you need multiple quotes, sample invoices, and one test shipment to confirm the credit timing. If new packaging tooling is involved, add another 1 to 3 weeks for proof approval and production scheduling, and plan on 12 to 15 business days from proof approval for a typical folding carton run out of a shop in Illinois.

I have seen the timeline stretch when procurement and accounts payable are not aligned. Procurement thinks the allowance is 8%. AP sees a freight invoice with fuel, detention, and liftgate charges, then pays the wrong amount. A good guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances should include a handoff between sourcing and finance so the terms survive contact with reality, especially when the supplier’s fulfillment center is 90 miles away but the carrier treats the route like a specialty lane.

Common Mistakes Buyers Make With Freight Allowances

The first mistake is obsessing over the allowance amount and ignoring net landed cost. A 10% freight credit sounds impressive until you realize the base freight rate was inflated by 18% to begin with. That is why a disciplined guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances always compares the full invoice, not just the promised discount, especially on a 4,500-piece mailer order where the freight floor is $240 before fuel.

The second mistake is assuming all freight credits behave the same way. They do not. One allowance may exclude residential delivery. Another may cap out at $250 per shipment. A third may apply only in the first six months, then reset. If you do not read the exclusions, the “deal” can evaporate the moment real-world exceptions appear. I’ve watched otherwise sharp buyers miss this and then stare at me like the freight invoice had betrayed them personally, particularly when the vendor was shipping from a facility in Tennessee into a retail DC with strict appointment windows.

The third mistake is forgetting expiry terms. Some freight allowances reset quarterly. Others require a minimum spend that is easy to miss if demand softens. I’ve seen buyers lose a year’s worth of expected savings because the contract said the allowance only applied if monthly spend stayed above $18,000. One slow month, and the entire structure changed, which is exactly what happened on a packaging account in Arizona when an 11,500-unit launch order slipped to 7,200 units the next month.

The fourth mistake is not checking how damages, re-delivery fees, accessorial charges, and fuel surcharges are handled. Those items can be larger than the allowance itself on awkward lanes. A liftgate charge of $95 can wipe out a small freight credit very quickly. So can detention at a busy receiving dock. If you ship into retail distribution centers, this is not a theoretical issue. A single missed appointment in New Jersey can add $150 before the trailer even gets unloaded.

The fifth mistake is failing to document the terms. That sounds bureaucratic, but invoice disputes become expensive fast. Without a written record, the supplier will reference one version, AP will reference another, and everyone will waste time reconciling a $73 difference that should have been prevented at the start. I have spent more time than I care to admit helping teams hunt down a missing credit memo that should have been attached to the original quote, including one from a converter in Pennsylvania that took 19 days to resolve.

One procurement manager told me over coffee that his team “saved” $4,000 on freight allowances last quarter. When we reviewed the books, they had also paid $5,600 in re-delivery, split-pallet, and appointment fees. The savings were a mirage. That is exactly the sort of trap a careful guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances should help you avoid, especially when the supplier’s warehouse is 40 miles closer but charges for every exception.

For buyers who want more control over packaging economics, packaging and shipping should be reviewed together with design, carton sizing, and supplier location. Freight allowances do not live in isolation. They sit beside product packaging specs, order cadence, and warehouse operations, and a 350gsm C1S artboard mailer can become expensive fast if the outer shipper adds 0.5 inches to every side.

Expert Tips for Stronger Negotiated Packaging Freight Allowances

Negotiate from data, not intuition. Bring shipment history, SKU mix, order frequency, and damage claims to the table. The more concrete your numbers, the more likely a supplier will take the conversation seriously. I have seen a buyer walk in with vague language like “we ship a lot.” I have also seen another buyer arrive with 11 months of pallet counts, lane maps, and invoice totals. Guess which one got better terms? The second buyer usually wins, especially if they can point to 48 shipments from a plant in Kentucky and show that 31 of them were underloaded.

Another strong move is pairing freight terms with packaging design improvements. If your carton footprint shrinks by just 0.75 inches, you may increase pallet density enough to justify a better freight allowance. That is especially true on corrugated orders, where minor dimensional changes can alter how many units fit per layer. The same applies to inserts and inner packs. Small design shifts can produce real shipping savings, like moving from 88 units per pallet to 104 without changing board grade or print finish.

Do not ignore service level trade-offs. Faster transit can be worth less favorable freight terms if stockouts are expensive. A retail packaging buyer handling promotional launch kits may gladly accept a tighter allowance if it guarantees on-time delivery. A subscription-box operator with fixed ship dates may care more about reliability than the last 2% of freight savings. There is no universal answer, and anyone who claims there is probably hasn’t had to explain a missed launch to marketing, especially after a 7-business-day delay from proof approval turned into 15.

Compare multiple suppliers, even if you already have a favorite. Benchmarking exposes where flexibility is real and where it is fake. If three suppliers can offer a $120 allowance and one refuses, that tells you something. If one supplier offers a better allowance only because they are 1,200 miles closer to your warehouse, that tells you something else. The point is to understand the source of the advantage, whether the supplier is in North Carolina, Wisconsin, or southern California.

Ask for a review clause. That is one of the most overlooked tools in a guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances. If volume rises 20%, lanes change, or the order profile shifts from parcel to pallet, the allowance should be revisited. Suppliers often accept this because it protects them too. It prevents stale agreements from becoming sources of friction later, and it gives both sides a checkpoint every 90 or 180 days.

Here are three practical questions I use in live negotiations:

• If we consolidate from 12 shipments a month to 6, what changes?
• If we move from parcel to LTL, how does the allowance move?
• If our annual spend crosses $100,000, what exactly improves?

I also recommend tying the freight discussion back to wider packaging strategy. If your brand is investing in branded packaging, premium graphics, or more refined package branding, freight discipline protects that investment. Fancy packaging that arrives with poor shipping economics is just a more expensive problem. Good packaging design should support both shelf appeal and freight efficiency, whether the structure is a rigid setup box from Toronto or a folded carton from Wisconsin.

For teams who care about responsible sourcing, look at supplier certification paths such as FSC at fsc.org. Certification does not reduce freight by itself, of course, but it can influence board sourcing, production regions, and shipment planning. Those choices eventually show up in landed cost, especially when board is milled in Quebec and converted in the U.S. Midwest.

What to Do Next After You Negotiate

Once the agreement is signed, the work is not finished. In fact, the first 60 days matter more than the signing meeting. I recommend creating a one-page internal checklist that lists the agreed freight allowance terms, supplier contact names, AP instructions, eligible lanes, and invoice review steps. Keep it simple enough that someone in accounting can use it at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday. That is usually when the weirdest invoices arrive, including a $56 pallet exchange charge or a freight line that was coded to the wrong project.

Then set a monthly landed-cost review. Compare expected versus actual freight outcomes for at least three invoice cycles. If the allowance is supposed to save $180 per shipment and you are only seeing $110, find out why. Was the lane excluded? Did a fuel surcharge get added? Did the supplier ship from a different facility than the one discussed? These details matter, especially if the supplier switched production from their Atlanta plant to a facility in South Carolina.

Track exceptions separately. Rush shipments, damaged freight, re-delivery fees, and surcharge spikes should be logged in a shared file with date, amount, and reason. That log becomes gold during the next negotiation. It turns complaints into evidence. It also helps procurement explain to finance why a freight allowance might look good on paper but underperform in practice, like when a $200 monthly credit is offset by two $85 appointment fees and one $60 detention charge.

Train procurement and AP together. If the sourcing team understands what should appear on the PO but AP is paying invoices differently, the whole agreement drifts. A clean internal process is part of the value of any guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances. The supplier can only honor the deal if your team knows how to receive it, code it, and reconcile it against the original quote number.

Finally, build a supplier comparison sheet that uses total cost, service, and allowance terms in one view. I like columns for unit cost, freight method, allowance amount, accessorial exposure, lead time, and claims rate. It takes an extra hour to build. It can save thousands later. Then, once the data is visible, renegotiate from a stronger position. That is the real end goal of a guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances: not just one better quote, but a better sourcing habit built around repeatable numbers and a 12- to 15-business-day production rhythm.

In practice, the best packaging teams treat shipping terms as part of the product strategy. They review custom packaging, order patterns, and freight together. That is how they protect margin without starving service. And that is how a guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances becomes a business tool rather than a pricing footnote, whether the work is happening in a facility in Ohio, a warehouse in Texas, or a converter in North Carolina.

If you remember only one thing from this guide to negotiated packaging freight allowances, make it this: the best deal is rarely the lowest box price. It is the lowest reliable landed cost, backed by clear terms, workable service, and invoices that match the promise. I’ve seen that principle save money on plain corrugated cartons, premium retail packaging, and heavily branded packaging alike, from a 2,000-piece run in Ohio to a 15,000-piece program in North Carolina. The packaging changes. The math does not. And if the math looks suspicious, trust your instincts, check the freight line, and get the allowance terms into writing before the next reorder hits the dock.