The vocabulary an agent order is written in

A status word that reads like an ending, a weight that is not a weight, and a photograph service with three names.

Knowing

The words the rules are written in

Half the confusion in this business is vocabulary. A status word that reads like an ending, a weight that is not a weight, a photograph service with three names. Here are the terms that appear on the order screen or in the help centre, defined the way a buyer needs them rather than the way a logistics company would.

Terms as used on this service, 21 and 22 October 2026. Other agents use some of the same words for slightly different things.
Stored	The order line state that means the goods are on the shelf and selectable. Both of your deadlines start here, which makes it the single most important word on the account.
Received	Arrived, counted and weighed, but not yet shelved. It reads like an ending and is the middle of a working day.
Quality check, often shortened to QC	The look-over at receiving, and by extension the photographs it produces. Front, back, side or label, as a rule.
Fine photography	The paid alternative to the free frames: high-definition shots taken to your stated angles, positions or measurements.
Detail shot	A single extra photograph bought after the free set, priced per frame.
Packing rehearsal	A dry run in which the box is really built and weighed so you can price freight against a measured parcel instead of a guess.
Scale weight	What the packed parcel reads on the scales, goods plus packing materials.
Volume weight	The three sides multiplied and divided by a carrier's divisor. The larger of it and the scale reading is bigger decides what you pay.
Divisor	The number a carrier divides a box's volume by. Five thousand is the common one here; six, seven and eight thousand all appear on different lines.
Separate packaging	An automatic flag on anything with a side of ninety centimetres or more. Flagged goods travel alone.
Line, or route	One carrier offer to one destination, with its own weight rules, capacity, tax treatment and restricted-goods list.
Line-by-line declaration	You edit the customs entries the system drafts from the contents.
Single-figure declaration	You supply a single total and the system divides it over the contents for you.
Prepaid sales tax arrangement	Offered on some European routes: tax is calculated from fixed national rates and collected up front. The identifier used is not disclosed to buyers.
Abnormal parcel	Something signed for at the warehouse that cannot be matched to an account. Thirty days, no reminders, because nobody knows whose it is.
Outstanding balance	A top-up request raised when the seller's real price, usually the domestic postage part, differs from what you submitted.
Transfer order	The route for goods you bought yourself and want forwarded. The warehouse address comes from this form rather than from any public page.
Minimum order quantity	A wholesale marketplace term. The headline price on those listings often belongs to a quantity tier rather than to a single unit.

People in forums write GL and RL. What are those?

Posted rule

Neither appears anywhere in Whalebuy's published help centre. They are community shorthand that grew up around shared product lists: a green light meaning a listing somebody has ordered from successfully, and a red light meaning one to avoid.

Not a company term; recorded here because readers arrive asking about it.

In practice

Treat both as hearsay with no standing on the service. A warehouse photograph of your own goods is evidence; a colour code somebody gave a listing is an opinion.

Misread as

The codes get read as a verification scheme. Nobody runs them, nobody audits them, and the listing behind one can change seller or specification overnight.

Knowing

Words that look alike and are not

Received against stored. The first is the loading bay, the second is the shelf. Only the second one lets you build a parcel, and only the second one starts a clock.
Estimated billing weight against actual billing weight. The first is derived from stored goods before packing, the second from the packed box. A gap either way is reconciled.
Domestic return against overseas return. One is re-sent free, the other is re-sent at your cost. The account shows them in similar language.
Delay cover against loss cover. Different triggers, different exclusions, and fragile goods sit inside one and outside the other.
A voucher's headline figure against its minimum spend. The second decides whether the first is available to you today.

Next: three calculators built on these definitions.