Lead times, freight, and the questions that belong on every purchase order
Stock, made-to-order, and imported goods run on very different clocks. A buyer who confirms the clock and the freight terms up front controls the schedule.
A wallpaper purchase order that names only a pattern and a quantity is missing the two variables that most often break a schedule: lead time and freight. Both are knowable at the quote stage, and both belong in writing on the order rather than discovered when a job is framed and waiting.
Lead time depends on how the goods exist. In-stock domestic patterns can ship in days. Made-to-order and printed-to-order goods run on the mill's production calendar and commonly quote in weeks. Imported material adds ocean or air transit plus customs clearance on top of production, which can push a straightforward order toward a couple of months. These ranges shift with demand and season, so a buyer asks which bucket the specific pattern falls in and gets the answer as a committed ship date, not an adjective, because "quick" and "soon" do not hold a construction schedule.
Freight terms decide who owns the goods in transit and who pays. For international orders these are formalized as Incoterms, the International Chamber of Commerce's standard trade terms, currently the Incoterms 2020 set. Domestically the same questions still apply in plainer language: is the price delivered or ex-warehouse, does it move by common carrier or freight, and who inspects for concealed damage at receipt. Wallpaper crushed at the roll ends in transit is a claim against the carrier only if the damage is noted at delivery, so the receiving instruction belongs on the order too.
A reliable purchase order therefore pins down six things beyond price and quantity: the pricing unit and packaging unit, the repeat and match type, the required single run, the overage percentage, the committed ship date, and the freight and inspection terms. None is exotic. Each is a place where an underspecified order quietly becomes a delay or a shortage, and confirming all six before release is cheaper than chasing any one of them after.