Purchasing & suppliers
Expediting
By the Supply Chain Manager team · Updated October 16, 2026
Expediting is speeding up an order that is already placed, by pushing the supplier, paying for faster shipping or splitting the delivery, to avoid a stockout.
It is a recovery tool, not a plan. Every expedite costs something: premium freight, supplier goodwill or a planner's afternoon. Frequent expediting usually points to reorder points that are too low or lead times that are wrong.
Expediting example
Illustrative numbers: a SKU will run out in 4 days and the PO is due in 8. Air freight for part of the order costs $350 extra. If the stockout would lose about $1,200 of margin, the expedite is worth it; if another warehouse can transfer stock for $80, that is better still.
Why expediting matters for distributors
Knowing the cost of each option, expedite, transfer or accept the backorder, lets purchasing make the cheapest call quickly instead of defaulting to the most expensive.
Common expediting mistakes
- Expediting by habit rather than comparing it with a transfer.
- Never tracking expedite costs, so the underlying planning problem is never fixed.
Examples on this page use made-up round numbers to show the calculation. They are not benchmarks or results from real businesses.