Delaware Product Inspection
AQL Quality Control Before Your FBA Shipment
Professional product inspection at QuickShipment's Claymont, Delaware facility. 35-point AQL quality control before FBA shipment. Protect your Amazon account health.
What Our Product Inspection Covers
QuickShipment's product inspection service applies a 35-point quality control checklist to every incoming batch. Our inspection covers three levels: carton level (10 points — shipment damage, moisture, count verification), unit level (15 points — product match, cosmetic damage, labeling, component completeness), and functional testing (5 points — electronics powered on, function verified, all controls operational). Final labeling and compliance checks (5 points) verify legal requirements for your category.
AQL Sampling Standard
We use AQL (Acceptable Quality Level) 2.5 for major defects and AQL 4.0 for minor defects — the same standard used by professional QC agencies and many Amazon category managers. For a 1,000-unit batch, our AQL 2.5 inspection samples 80 units. If fewer than 6 major defects are found, the batch passes. If it fails, you receive a full photo report and recommendations before any units ship to Amazon.
Photo Inspection Report
Every inspection generates a photo report within 24 hours of completing inspection. The report includes: pass/fail status by inspection category, defect rate by type (cosmetic, functional, labeling), photographs of any defective units, and recommended disposition (accept, rework, reject). Reports are accessible in your QuickShipment dashboard and can be forwarded directly to your supplier for warranty claims.
Why Pre-FBA Inspection Matters
Amazon's policy is strict: if defective units reach the fulfillment center, they can be returned, resulting in negative reviews, ASIN suppression, or in extreme cases, account suspension. A single bad batch that generates 20 negative reviews can take 6–12 months to recover from. Visual inspection from $2 per inspected unit is a small investment compared to the cost of ASIN damage.
Inspection Pricing
We offer three inspection depths. Pricing is per inspected (sampled) unit, not per unit in the batch.
- Full Inspection — $15.00 / unit. The unit is removed from its box, physically checked and photographed (5 images); electronics are plugged in and function-tested.
- Visual Inspection — $2.00 / unit. Carton and outer packaging damage check.
- Visual Inspection + Photo Report — $5.00 / unit. Visual inspection plus 2 photographs.
Acceptance criteria are AQL 2.5 for major defects and AQL 4.0 for minor defects in all three levels. Sample size is set by batch size under ANSI Z1.4 / ISO 2859-1 General Inspection Level II — a 1,000-unit batch samples 80 units.
| Batch | Sample | Full | Visual | Visual + photos |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | 50 | $750 | $100 | $250 |
| 1,000 | 80 | $1,200 | $160 | $400 |
| 2,000 | 125 | $1,875 | $250 | $625 |
| 5,000 | 200 | $3,000 | $400 | $1,000 |
Three Tiers, and Which One You Actually Need
Inspection is priced by how much of the unit gets looked at, not by how important the shipment feels. The three levels do genuinely different work:
| Level | What we check | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Visual | Exterior condition, packaging integrity, obvious defects, correct SKU | $2.00 / unit |
| Visual + photo report | The above, plus two photographs per unit filed against the SKU | $5.00 / unit |
| Full inspection | Unboxing, component and accessory check, function check where applicable, measurement and weight verification | $15.00 / unit |
Most sellers over-buy. If you are checking a repeat order from a supplier you already trust, a visual pass on an AQL sample catches the failures that actually happen — wrong SKU in the carton, crushed retail boxes, missing barcodes. Full inspection earns its price on a first order from a new supplier, on a high-value SKU, or after a quality complaint.
AQL, Explained Properly
AQL — Acceptable Quality Level — is a sampling standard, not a quality promise. It tells you how many units to pull from a lot and how many defects allow the lot to pass. We use AQL 2.5 for major defects and AQL 4.0 for minor ones, which is the common consumer-goods setting.
The part that matters and is rarely said: a passing AQL lot still contains defects. That is the design. Sampling gives you a statistically defensible answer at a fraction of the cost of checking everything. If your tolerance is genuinely zero — a category where a single bad unit triggers a listing suspension — sampling is the wrong tool and you should be inspecting 100% of units, which we will quote separately.
When to Inspect: Here or at the Supplier
Both have a place and they catch different things.
- At the supplier, before shipping — catches the expensive failures early, while the goods can still be reworked or refused without a freight cost. Best for first orders and large runs.
- Here, before FBA — catches what happened in transit and what the supplier's own check missed, and it is the last point where a unit can be fixed before Amazon grades it. Best for repeat orders and anything that has already been shipped.
Inspecting here has one practical advantage: the stock is already at the point where the fix happens. A crushed carton found at our dock is repackaged the same week; the same carton found at Amazon becomes a removal order.
What Inspection Cannot Catch
Worth being clear about the limits before you buy it:
- Latent defects. A component that fails after three weeks of use will pass every visual and function check we run.
- Compliance and certification. We do not perform electrical safety testing, chemical analysis or regulatory certification, and we do not issue conformity documents.
- Authenticity. We can flag obvious counterfeits — wrong logo, wrong packaging, wrong print quality — but we are not a brand-authentication service.
- Anything below the sampling line. On an AQL check, units outside the sample are not inspected.
What You Receive
Every inspection produces a written result against the SKU: sample size, defects found by category, pass or fail against the agreed AQL, and photographs at the photo-report level and above. Failures are reported the same business day, because the value of an inspection is entirely in how fast you can act on it.
If a lot fails, the units stay here. Nothing goes into an FBA shipment on a failed inspection unless you tell us to send it anyway.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you inspect only part of a shipment?
Yes. Inspection is priced per unit, so you can inspect one SKU, one carton or an AQL sample rather than the whole consignment.
Do you inspect returned units too?
Returns are graded as part of returns processing at $5.00 per unit, which includes inspection. You do not need to buy both.
What happens to failed units?
They are held and reported. You decide: repackage, return to supplier, sell on a secondary channel, or dispose.
Is inspection included in FBA prep?
A basic condition check is part of prep. Formal inspection with a documented AQL result is a separate service.