Updated October 2026
Strollers and cribs cost a lot to ship because of their size. Formula and baby food need every lot and expiry date tracked. On top of both come storage, packing and returns.
The main drivers of baby products fulfillment cost are:
Box size, carrier choice and where your stock is kept are where a warehouse can potentially bring some of them down.
By The Fulfillment.com team
Two baby brands can pay the same rate for every pick and every pallet and still end up with very different bills. The one shipping strollers usually pays most for freight, because carriers often bill a big box on its size. The one shipping formula pays for something a stroller never needs, which is keeping track of each lot and its expiry date.
A lot of baby brands carry both. If a quote lumps the two together, you can't tell which half of your catalog is costing you more.
You pay for the space your stock takes up and for how long it stays. Baby catalogs use a lot of space. Cribs, strollers and high chairs are big, and diaper and wipe cartons take up a lot of room for what they weigh. Formula and baby food go into dry, shelf-stable storage. You keep paying to store stock that isn't selling. Planning production runs and reorders around what actually sells keeps this bill down.
For every order, someone on our floor pulls the item, scans its barcode and packs it. A one-item order costs the least. Orders with several items, registry bundles, and subscription or diaper-refill kits all take more handling. The scan is what keeps a parent who ordered size 3 from opening size 5. It also saves money, since a wrong item comes back and the right one has to ship again. We pick orders and build kits in BestOMS, our order system.
On a baby catalog, freight is often the largest single cost, and dimensional weight (DIM) is why. The carrier works out a weight from the box's measurements and bills on that whenever it comes to more than the item actually weighs. So a stroller, crib or high chair in an oversized carton is billed on its size, often with oversize or additional-handling surcharges added.
Shipping heavy nursery durables goes through the carton, the surcharges and the choice between parcel and freight. Strollers and car seats, where safety matters most, have their own guide, stroller and car seat fulfillment.
Formula and baby food carry a cost that strollers don't. We record the lot and expiry date as they come in and rotate them first-expired-first-out, so the unit nearest its date leaves first.
Car seats aren't food, but they carry a manufacturer's expiration date, so we record it the same way. Strollers, cribs and baby clothing have no date to track. On children's products we also note which lot went into each order, so a recall can be narrowed to one lot.
Two questions are worth asking any warehouse that would hold these products:
For how the rotation works, see FEFO vs FIFO for infant formula and baby food.
Every return costs you the trip back, an inspection, and then either a restock or the cost of dealing with a unit that can't be resold. For a crib or a stroller, the trip back alone is expensive. We inspect each return through our returns process before anything is restocked.
Much of what you can save here happens before the order ships. Better packing lowers the risk of damage on the way, and the barcode scan at picking guards against the return that starts with a wrong item.
Your products and your order volume decide most of these costs. A warehouse has some say over three of them.
They are the box, the carrier and where your stock sits. A carton sized to a stroller or crib is billed on less space and is less likely to arrive damaged and come back as a return, which is the work of our freight and heavy-unit handling service. The team that packs each order also chooses between parcel, LTL and FTL. And you can place your stock across our warehouses, which reach 99.77% of the US in 1-3 day ground, so each parcel starts nearer the customer and travels a shorter distance. Our guide to shipping heavy nursery durables goes through all three.
Ask each warehouse you're considering to price the costs above one at a time. Have them explain how they choose a carrier and a box for oversized freight. Ask how lot, expiry and recall handling work on your formula and baby food. Those answers, with freight, are where baby fulfillment bills differ most. A single per-order price with no breakdown leaves you no way to see which part is expensive.
If you sell through retailers as well as your own store, raise any routing-guide needs at quote; channels connect through Dropstream. We ship finished, sealed product, and manufacturing, testing and certification stay with your manufacturer and its labs.
There are five main ones. Storage and pick-and-pack apply to everything you sell. Freight weighs most on strollers, cribs and other bulky nursery gear, which carriers often bill by the size of the box. Formula and baby food add the work of tracking lots and expiry dates. Anything that comes back has to be inspected. Your price comes mostly from these, not from one per-order number. A warehouse can potentially lower some of them, mostly through the box, the carrier and where your stock sits. The carrier for each order is chosen by the same team that picked and packed it.
Strollers, cribs, car seats and high chairs are heavy, bulky and oddly shaped. Carriers often price a parcel like that on dimensional weight (DIM): they work out a weight from the box's measurements and charge on it when it beats the scale weight. Oversize or additional-handling surcharges often come on top. A carton that fits the product, the right carrier and service, and a choice between LTL and FTL for the biggest loads can potentially bring that cost down.
They need handling that durable gear never does. We record the lot and expiry date of formula and baby food as it arrives, and ship the earliest-dated units first. We hold them dry and shelf-stable as finished, sealed goods. Under FDA's infant-formula rules, 21 CFR 106 and 107, quality controls, records and recall plans are the manufacturer's job. Ask any warehouse how it handles short-dated stock and whether that shows up as a separate charge, and whether it is registered with FDA as a food facility if it would hold your formula.
Most of the work happens at receiving, when we note the lot and expiry of each delivery and carry them through to the order. That record lets a recall stay with one lot instead of freezing your whole catalog. Testing and the Children's Product Certificate remain with the manufacturer and its labs. Before you sign, ask any warehouse whether it checks the CPSIA tracking label and CPC paperwork at the dock, how it bills a recall pull, and what records the pull leaves behind.
You pay for the trip back, for the inspection, and then for a restock or for dealing with a unit that can't be resold. We inspect returns as they come in, and only a unit that passes a resellable-condition check goes back on the shelf, so a damaged stroller or an opened formula carton doesn't reach your next customer as new. On bulky gear, part of the saving comes before the order ships: reinforced, corner-protected packing is the standard to look for, because it lowers the risk of damage on the way.
A price for each of the costs above, listed separately. It should also say how the warehouse picks carriers and box sizes for oversized freight, and how lot and recall handling work on formula and baby food. One bundled per-order number hides which cost is high. Our quote for your SKUs, volume and channels is free.