Key Takeaways
- Warehouse accuracy becomes critical as order volume grows, and even small fulfilment errors can lead to lost customers and increased operational costs.
- Hiring more staff rarely solves scaling challenges; a warehouse management system (WMS) enables teams to work faster, smarter, and with fewer mistakes.
- Moving away from paper and investing in barcode-driven processes is an essential step toward real-time visibility, sustainable growth, and long-term warehouse efficiency.
We were really excited when Starshipit invited us to be a part of their Shipping Masterclass series at the start of 2023. This video series brings together a collection of ecommerce experts in various fields, like loyalty programmes, customer experience, and in our case, warehouse management. All the episodes are available here.
Starshipit and Peoplevox have a long history of close collaboration, with our shared customers doing some extraordinary things across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. In our session, Hawk Steele and Leo Connolly talk through when the right time is to implement a WMS for retailers and ecommerce businesses. In this article, we will reveal the top five points from their masterclass discussion.
Should I Implement a WMS? Five Important Considerations
1. 67% of Retailers Have Lost Customers Due to Simple Warehouse Inventory Errors
This shows how important it is to have efficient systems and accurate stock levels, especially when you consider how expensive it is to win new customers, how competitive the market is in big ecommerce niches like women’s fashion, and how loyal customers can spend more and more with you each time they come back.
2. Throwing People at the Problem Stops Making Sense Sooner than You Might Think
As order volumes grow from the 10s to the 100s, the natural thought of business owners is to bring more people in to help pick and pack orders. ‘More hands make light work’ is not true in this world. Industry benchmarks suggest that even a basic digital system for order fulfilment can enable one person to pick 50 items an hour.
So, if you’ve got eight people in your warehouse and they’re struggling to handle 200 orders a day, your issue isn’t a lack of manpower. It’s a lack of technology, automation and efficiency. A system that makes your existing people more effective provides a far greater return on investment (ROI) than another five members of staff clogging up your warehouse aisles.
3. Trust the Experts
Not many brand founders set up a commerce business because they want to run a razor sharp warehouse operation. Whether it’s hiring an experienced operations director early on, trusting partners, or implementing the right systems, getting ahead on the set-up in the warehouse is only going to lay strong foundations for the future.
You might be doing things a certain way based on instinct, like storing each product in only one location, like a retail store. Whereas a WMS might allow you to deploy dynamic locations, saving you space, increasing your pick density and reducing errors.
4. Paper Must Go
For any business looking to scale effectively, relying on paper pick lists is a recipe for disaster, both from an inventory management and an environmental perspective.
We’ve seen enough times in warehouses, pieces of paper with items to be picked lying around behind shelves, crumpled up and otherwise misplaced. That’s an unhappy customer missing their order waiting to happen! There’s no way for events to be tracked in real time, inventory will always be slightly ‘wrong’ in the ecommerce platform, and there’s no way to handle issues or missing items.
5. More Haste, Less Speed
Ecommerce moves incredibly fast and is one of the most dynamic industries. Decisions can happen on the spot and changes implemented in days, not weeks or months like in other sectors. However, rushing a warehouse set-up can have long lasting consequences.
When implementing a WMS, you need to barcode every item and every location for it to work effectively. This might be a labour-intensive process up front but will pay off in spades down the line when you have full traceability of your inventory and the activity in your warehouse.
For more information on Descartes’s partnership with Starshipit, check out the Peoplevox integration page. Otherwise, head on over to Starshipit’s site. You can also schedule a Peoplevox demo to discover how it can solve your warehouse management challenges.
Implementing a WMS FAQs
How Do I Measure Whether My Warehouse Team Is Working at Peak Efficiency?
Track metrics like pick rate per hour, error rates, time to dispatch, and the number of orders completed per team member. If these numbers plateau or decline as volume increases, it may signal that manual processes are holding your team back.
What Skills Should My Team Have Before We Introduce a WMS?
A team does not need advanced technical skills. What matters most is openness to structured processes, comfort with mobile devices, and a willingness to follow guided workflows. A good WMS will make daily tasks simpler rather than more complex.
How Long Should I Expect a WMS Implementation To Take?
Timeframes vary by warehouse size and complexity, but most retailers can go live within weeks, not months, when processes, barcoding, and layout decisions are prepared in advance. Clear goals and internal alignment help keep the timeline tight.
