How to Inspect a Flooring Shipment on Arrival

The half hour you spend inspecting a container when it is unloaded decides whether a problem is the supplier's to fix or yours to absorb. Once you sign clean and the claims window closes, your leverage is gone. Work through this checklist before the driver leaves and before you approve the goods for sale.

Before you break the seal

Start at the container door. Check the seal number against the one on your bill of lading. If it does not match, or the seal is broken or tampered with, photograph it and note it on the delivery paperwork before opening. That single check protects you if goods have been interfered with in transit.

Count against the packing list

As pallets come off, tally the carton and pallet count against the packing list, not against memory. Confirm the number of boxes, the square metres and the pallet count all line up. A short count found now is a claim; a short count found next month is an argument.

• Match total cartons and pallets to the packing list figures.
• Confirm the square metres or box count per SKU if you ordered more than one.
• Check the gross weight looks right if you have a weighbridge reading.
• Flag any discrepancy in writing on the delivery note before signing.

Inspect carton condition

Look at the cartons themselves. Crushed corners, water staining, forklift punctures or collapsed stacks all suggest handling damage. Set aside anything damaged, open a sample of the worst cartons to see whether the planks inside are actually affected, and photograph everything before you move it. Damage to the outer carton is not always damage to the product, but you document both.

Check batch and lot numbers

Flooring is manufactured in batches, and colour and texture can shift slightly between them. Check the batch or lot number printed on the cartons and confirm the whole order shares the same batch, or that the batches match what you were told. Mixed batches installed in one room can show a visible tone difference, so you want this caught on the dock, not by an installer halfway through a floor.

Compare against your retained sample

You kept a signed sample or a reference board from the approval stage. Open a carton and compare the delivered product to it: colour, embossing, bevel, thickness, click profile and surface finish. This is the check that catches a substitution or an off-spec run. If it does not match the approved sample, stop and document before anything goes to a customer.

Document and file within the window

If anything is wrong, build the file immediately: photos of the container seal, the damaged cartons and the affected planks, the delivery note with your annotations, the packing list and your batch notes. Most suppliers and insurers require claims within a set number of days of delivery, so check that window on your contract or policy and file inside it. A clear, dated, photographed claim submitted on time is almost always resolved; a late or vague one rarely is.

MILAT provides batch information and retains product references so a delivered order can be checked against what you approved. If a shipment shows an issue, contact the sales team promptly with your photos and packing list so it can be reviewed within the claims window.

Unloading is where good shipments get damaged

A surprising share of claims begin after the container doors open, caused by the receiving side. Forklift tines punched through cartons, pallets clipped against the container frame, boxes dropped on their corners because a team was rushing before rain: all of it becomes your cost, because the goods were sound at discharge. Slow the unload down. Use the right tine length, keep a spotter at the doors, and stage pallets in a marked area rather than wherever they land. If exterior damage from transit is visible as pallets come off, photograph it in the doorway, with the container number in frame, before anything moves further.

Container rain and the humidity shock problem

A steel box crossing climate zones breathes. Warm humid air inside condenses on the cold roof and drips onto cargo, a phenomenon crews call container rain, and cartons can arrive damp even though no water entered from outside. On arrival, check the top layer of cartons and the underside of the roof for moisture traces, and note any dampness on the delivery documents even if the flooring itself looks fine, since carton staining discovered later is hard to attribute. Then let the material acclimatise: pallets moved from a cold container into a warm warehouse will condense moisture on their surfaces for a while, which is normal, but stack them so air can reach the cartons.

After inspection: storage that preserves what you checked

Passing inspection means little if the warehouse then ruins the goods. SPC cartons should be stored flat and fully supported, stacked within sensible height limits so bottom cartons are not crushed, in a dry space away from direct sunlight and heat sources. Keep batches physically separated and labelled so pickers do not mix lots on a single order, which quietly manufactures a colour-consistency complaint at a customer's site. First in, first out matters too: rotating stock keeps no pallet sitting in a corner for years collecting forklift scars.

Phased shipments need a running record, not one-off checks

When a project or a season arrives across several containers, inspection becomes a series, and the value is in the continuity. Keep one register where every delivery's date, container number, batch and lot numbers, quantities and photos live together. Check each new arrival not only against its packing list but against the previous deliveries of the same product, since batch drift shows itself between shipments, not within one. If shipment three will be installed beside shipment one in the same space, lay boards from both side by side under good light before the fitters do it for you in front of the client.

Turn the checklist into a habit your team runs without you

The owner cannot meet every container. Write the inspection as a one-page routine that any warehouse colleague can execute: seal photo, count, carton condition, batch numbers, sample comparison, sign only after. Laminate it, hang it at the receiving bay, and store the photos in a shared folder named by container number. A supplier like MILAT resolves issues fastest when the evidence arrives organised, and an importer whose claims always come with clean documentation gets taken seriously on the rare occasion something is genuinely wrong. Reputation works in both directions of the relationship.