Dillard's buys products directly from fashion brands and manufacturers for retail sales. AIMS360 Apparel ERP integrates with Dillard's Bulk and Dillard's dropship program to sync styles, inventory updates, order management, ASN shipment, & Invoice Management.
Dillard's runs a strict, well specified vendor program: eight mandatory EDI documents, a UPC ticket on every piece before it ships, GS1-128 cartons, and an ASN that has to beat the truck to the distribution center. AIMS360 builds all of it from one record, so the label on the box and the 856 in the file cannot disagree.
Dillard's purchase orders come into AIMS360 over native EDI and land against live inventory. The warehouse picks and packs against the order, the GS1-128 carton label prints with its SSCC, and the 856 is built from those same scanned cartons, so the file describes the freight rather than describing the order.
That last part is the whole game at Dillard's. Their published requirements are unusually specific about the ASN matching what the distribution center scans, carton for carton and UPC for UPC, and the charges for getting it wrong are itemized. When the label and the file come out of two different systems, they drift, and the drift is what you pay for.
Dillard's published vendor guide splits these into mandatory and optional. New vendors get a 60 day grace period from becoming active before noncompliance charges start.
| Document | What it is | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 850 | Purchase order, from Dillard's to you | Mandatory |
| 860 | Purchase order change | Mandatory |
| 856 | Advance ship notice, from you to Dillard's | Mandatory |
| 810 | Invoice | Mandatory |
| 820 | Payment order and remittance advice, tied to electronic funds transfer | Mandatory |
| 816 | Organizational relationship | Mandatory |
| 864 | Text message | Mandatory |
| 997 | Functional acknowledgment | Mandatory |
| 812 | Credit and debit adjustment | Optional, 004030VICS only |
| 852 | Product activity data, the sell through feed | Optional |
Versions are 004010VICS and 004030VICS across the set, with the 812 on 004030VICS only. The guide states vendors are given at least six months notice before a version migration. Inbound only sets including the 210, 214, 240, 315 and 832 carry carrier and catalog information.
Two separate requirements that brands new to Dillard's often collapse into one. Both are mandatory, and both carry their own charges.
Every item ships pre-ticketed with a UPC-A barcode and the 12 digit number printed in human readable form on the same ticket. The ticket has to be large enough for a standard Dillard's markdown sticker of 1 inch by 2.5 inches to sit on it, with small goods such as costume jewelry treated as an exception. Private label adds style, color, size, group, department, MIC and retail price.
Four barcodes: zip code, PO number, SSCC and carton number. The SSCC bars run at least 1.25 inches high and 3.1 inches wide, the zip and PO at least 0.5 inches. Ship from, ship to, department number and pack for store number appear as human readable text. Quiet zone of 0.25 inches on both sides.
Sides or ends of the carton only. Never the top, never the bottom, and if the label will not sit on a flat surface, do not wrap the barcodes around an edge. Dillard's asks for a sample from your production printer to be approved before you ship.
Held for at least 30 months from the last ship date and not reused inside that window. If the product has not changed, the UPC does not change either, including across seasons and when an item moves from fashion to basic. Dillard's accepts EAN-13 as well, and states it has no plans to trade 14 digit GTINs.
Dillard's states it plainly: if a shipment arrives at the distribution center before the ASN has been received and processed, the ASN cannot be used. Not late, not queued. Unusable, and the carton gets handled as an exception.
There is a timing detail worth building your process around. Dillard's pulls EDI files from the networks every 30 minutes between 6am and 7pm Central, with one more run at 4am to collect anything sent overnight. A file you transmit at 8pm sits until the small hours. If your truck leaves in the evening, that gap is where the 250 dollars goes.
The content rules are just as specific. The ASN is implemented at item level and carries the UPCs inside each carton. The carton number in the ASN has to match the number on the GS1-128 label the DC scans. The quantity has to match what is scanned out of the carton, and the UPC detail has to match the merchandise. Three separate ways for a hand built ASN to fail, and all three are charged per carton.
Few retailers itemize this publicly. Dillard's does, which makes the cost of a manual process easy to work out before you sign anything.
| What went wrong | Charge |
|---|---|
| No ASN received | $250.00 per purchase order |
| Missing or non-scannable GS1-128 carton label | $50.00 per carton |
| ASN quantity or UPC does not match the scan | $100.00 per carton |
| Mis-marked merchandise | $50.00 per SKU plus $1.00 per unit |
| Paper invoice once your 810 is live | $50.00 per document |
| Paper check instead of electronic funds transfer | $500.00 per check |
| Manual entry of UPC catalog records | $2.00 per record |
| UPC catalog changes outside GS1 standards | $250.00 per occurrence, plus $50.00 per style and $10.00 per PO updated |
These amounts are as published in the vendor guide Dillard's posts on its eBiz extranet. Read the next section before you treat them as current, and confirm the figures against the compliance policy issued to your own account.
Because it is. The Vendor Information and Implementation Guide posted on Dillard's eBiz extranet has a change summary whose most recent entries are dated 15 April 2012. It is a genuinely useful document and the structural requirements in it still describe the program, but a few things in it have aged, and a vendor reading it cold can waste a week.
The clearest example is connectivity. The guide names GXS and Inovis on one side and InterTrade on the other as the only permitted networks, and states that Dillard's does not support or authorize interconnects with any other third party network. Inovis merged into GXS back in 2010, and OpenText acquired GXS in 2014. The mailbox the guide is describing is an OpenText service now. The requirement is probably intact; the brand name in front of it is two owners old.
The other gap is coverage. The posted guide predates the whole ecommerce fulfillment conversation. There is no dropship section, no RFID, and a note that Dillard's has no plans to trade 14 digit GTINs.
So treat the posted guide as the baseline, not the last word. The current routing guide, the current compliance charge policy and anything specific to the program you have been invited to come from your Dillard's contacts and from the eBiz extranet itself, and Dillard's tells vendors directly that checking the routing guide for quarterly changes is their responsibility.
The program the vendor guide describes. Dillard's writes the order, you ship cartons to a distribution center against a routing guide, and the 850, 856, 810 and 820 carry the transaction. One PO per carton, packed by style, GS1-128 on every box.
Orders come to you one consumer at a time and ship from your warehouse in your packaging. AIMS360 supports brands running Dillard's bulk and Dillard's dropship. Note that Dillard's does not publish dropship requirements in its vendor guide, so the document set, timing and labeling for that channel come from Dillard's or from the platform your program runs on.
Worth confirming which one you have been invited to before you build anything. Bulk and dropship usually differ commercially as well as technically, and the answer decides whether you are quoting a wholesale cost or fulfilling at retail. Our dropship platform guide covers how these programs are usually run.
Both channels sell against the same inventory in AIMS360, alongside Shopify and your other wholesale accounts, so a good week on dillards.com cannot quietly oversell the units promised to a bulk PO.
Dillard's operated 272 stores including 28 clearance centers across 30 states as of 1 February 2025, concentrated in the southwest, southeast and midwest. Net sales for fiscal 2024 were $6.48 billion, down from $6.75 billion the year before. The company is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas and trades on the NYSE as DDS.
For a wholesale brand the useful detail is the merchandise mix. Dillard's runs a substantial private label program, including Antonio Melani, Gianni Bini, GB, Roundtree & Yorke and Daniel Cremieux, and carries national vendor brands alongside it. In its own filings the company says it buys from many sources and does not consider itself dependent on any one supplier, and that it holds no long term purchase commitments with suppliers. Read that the way a buyer would: the door is genuinely open to outside brands, and nothing about the relationship is guaranteed year to year.
Dillard's purchase orders import into the same platform that holds your stock, so you can see what you can actually ship before you confirm anything.
UPC-A tickets carry the style, color and size from the same record the order refers to, which is what keeps you out of the mis-mark charge at 50 dollars per SKU plus a dollar a unit.
Mobile scanning builds each carton, so the system knows what is in the box because it watched it go in. One PO per carton is enforced at pack time rather than checked afterward.
The GS1-128 label prints and its SSCC writes to the shipment record in the same step. The 856 is generated from those cartons, which is why the carton number, the quantity and the UPC detail agree with what the DC scans.
The 810 goes out from the same shipment, and the 820 remittance comes back into accounting without re-keying. If you factor your Dillard's receivables, approvals and assignments run from the same records.
EDI is part of the platform rather than a separate translator with its own bill, so a heavy Dillard's season does not multiply an EDI invoice. Chargeback management logs and routes any deductions that do land.
What apparel, footwear, jewelry and accessories brands ask before they trade with Dillard's.
Dillard's published vendor guide lists eight mandatory transaction sets: 850 purchase order, 860 purchase order change, 856 advance ship notice, 810 invoice, 820 payment order and remittance advice, 816 organizational relationship, 864 text message and 997 functional acknowledgment. The 812 credit and debit adjustment and the 852 product activity data are optional. New vendors get a 60 day grace period to become compliant before noncompliance charges apply.
Dillard's supports 004010VICS and 004030VICS for all transaction sets, with the exception of the 812 credit and debit adjustment, which is 004030VICS only. The guide states vendors get at least six months notice before Dillard's moves to a newer version.
Before the goods reach the distribution center. Dillard's states plainly that if a shipment arrives before the ASN has been received and processed, the ASN cannot be used. Dillard's pulls EDI files from the networks every 30 minutes from 6am to 7pm Central, with an additional run at 4am for anything sent overnight, so build your send time around that window rather than around your own cutoff.
The published guide lists specific amounts. No ASN is 250 dollars per purchase order. A missing or non-scannable GS1-128 carton label is 50 dollars per carton. ASN detail that does not match what the DC scans is 100 dollars per carton. Mis-marked merchandise is 50 dollars per SKU plus 1 dollar per unit. A paper invoice after your 810 is live is 50 dollars per document, and a paper check instead of electronic funds transfer is 500 dollars. These figures come from the guide Dillard's posts, and vendors should confirm current amounts against the compliance policy issued to their account.
Yes. All merchandise must be marked with a UPC ticket before it ships, using UPC-A symbology with the 12 digit number in human readable form on the same ticket. The ticket has to be big enough for a standard Dillard's markdown sticker of 1 inch by 2.5 inches to fit on it, with small items such as costume jewelry treated as an exception. Private label vendors also carry style, color, size, group, department, MIC and retail price on the ticket.
Four barcoded elements: the zip code, the purchase order number, the SSCC serial shipping container code and the carton number. The SSCC bars have to be at least 1.25 inches high and 3.1 inches wide, and the zip and PO barcodes at least 0.5 inches high. Ship from and ship to addresses, the department number and the pack for store number appear in human readable text at 3/8 inch minimum. Labels go on the sides or the ends of a carton, never the top or the bottom, and the barcodes must not wrap around an edge.
One purchase order per carton, with no exceptions. Pack by style, and it is acceptable to put more than one style in a carton if there is room. Cartons run from 9 by 6 by 3 inches at the smallest to 48 by 26 by 32 inches and 50 pounds at the largest, and parcel shipments must stay within 130 inches of length plus girth. Packing slips are not required or used except on direct store shipments, and merchandise should not be shipped straight to a store.
Merchandise on hangers cannot be packed in the same carton as merchandise that is not on hangers, and any carton containing hangers has to be marked on the outside with the word Hangers, a picture of a hanger or a hanger sticker. Dillard's asks vendors to follow the VICS hanger standards and to poly bag each piece and secure it to the hanger. One useful detail: Dillard's states it does not assess chargebacks for hanger or sizer violations, but it may charge you for failing to indicate that hangers are in the carton.
The published guide names only two, GXS and Inovis on one side and InterTrade on the other, and states that Dillard's does not support or authorize interconnects with any other third party network. Worth knowing before you make a call: Inovis merged into GXS in 2010 and OpenText acquired GXS in 2014, so the GXS mailbox described in the guide is an OpenText service today. Confirm your routing with Dillard's EDI team rather than assuming a provider you already use can interconnect.
Because the copy Dillard's posts on its eBiz extranet has a change summary that ends in April 2012. The structural requirements in it are still the shape of the program, but details like the approved network names have moved on, and the guide does not cover ecommerce or dropship fulfillment at all. Treat the posted guide as the baseline and get the current routing guide, compliance policy and any program specific standards directly from your Dillard's contacts.
Dillard's sells online as well as through its stores, and AIMS360 supports brands running Dillard's bulk and Dillard's dropship. Be aware that dropship requirements are not covered in the vendor guide Dillard's publishes, so the document set, timing and labeling for that channel come from Dillard's directly or from whichever platform your program runs on. The commercial terms usually differ from bulk too, so confirm which program you have been invited to before you build to it.
Yes. EDI is built into AIMS360 rather than bolted on beside it, so Dillard's purchase orders land against live inventory and the ASN is built from the cartons your warehouse actually scanned, with the GS1-128 label and the 856 coming from one record. Dillard's is one of 350+ retailer connections, and bulk and dropship orders draw on the same stock so the two channels cannot oversell each other.
Last reviewed 10 August 2026 by the AIMS360 EDI team. Every Dillard's requirement, specification and charge amount on this page is as published in Dillard's own Vendor Information and Implementation Guide on its eBiz extranet, whose most recent change summary entries are dated 15 April 2012. Requirements, routing guides and compliance charges are set by Dillard's, are updated on their own schedule and can change, so confirm anything commercially significant against the current documents issued to your account. Store counts and net sales are from Dillard's Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 1 February 2025. Dillard's, its store banners and its private label brands are trademarks of Dillard's, Inc., and AIMS360 is not affiliated with or endorsed by Dillard's.
See AIMS360 build the ticket, the carton label and the 856 from one record, in a 30 minute demo using your own Dillard's order.
