Top tips for faster, more effective ecommerce picking and packing.
If you operate a warehouse for an ecommerce business, speed is everything! Slow processes, delays to orders, lengthy fulfillment times, and hold-ups in your operation are killers. You don’t want to miss deadlines for things like next-day delivery, and if you don’t clear one day’s worth of orders in that day, the next day’s come piling in, and so on. You’re buried under a deluge of orders that you just can’t fulfill quickly enough.
If you’re worried about warehouse picking rates and unsure how to be a faster warehouse picker, relax. You can transform your ecommerce picking and packing operation for an exceptional customer experience and improved warehouse picking rates. Here are our tested tips for how to pick faster in a warehouse.
1. Stage high-demand products near shipping stations
If 50% of your sales come from your best-selling 10% of items, it makes most sense to have those items located as near the shipping stations as possible, to minimize walking time.
Getting ready for a flash sale, influencer livestream, or ecommerce peak season event that could spike order volumes around certain products? Stage high-demand items on rolling carts or temporary shelving near pack and ship areas for quick access.
See more tips for warehouse layout.
2. Batch pick multiple orders for the same item
If 100 people have all ordered the same thing, send one picker to collect all 100 items in one trip. Instead of including those orders in various other pick runs through the day, you can save time with batch picking.
Learn more about batch picking.
3. Divide your warehouse into zones
Assign 5 pickers to 5 designated areas of the warehouse, instructing them to collect items only from their assigned zone. This will stop the pickers from repeating each other’s steps, wasting time and getting in each other’s way.
Learn more about zone picking.
4. Maximize your pickface
Use as much space as possible in the warehouse for picking locations, rather than bulk storage. By storing more products in picking locations, ready to go, you don’t have to stop and replenish pickfaces as frequently.
Dynamic storage locations enable you to store the same SKU in multiple areas without losing track of location or inventory. By using barcode scanners with a warehouse management system (WMS), you can implement chaotic storage like Amazon uses to increase picking efficiency.
Learn more about Amazon’s warehouse layout.
5. Separate similar-looking items
Another benefit of using dynamic locations is that you don’t have to put all the blue mediums next to the large mediums, which can slow down pickers. Separate similar-looking items into multiple picking areas to simplify picking. If you’re looking for the only blue thing in an entire aisle, it makes finding the right item much faster.
6. Use an easy-to-follow app
If you’re still using paper pick lists and visually scanning shelves, consider upgrading to a warehouse management system (WMS) with mobile guided picking. Tech will dramatically improve warehouse efficiency for everyone.
If your warehouse already uses a mobile barcode system, make sure the instructions guiding workers from one item and action to the next are clear and easy to follow. Want an example?
Take a 5-minute tour of Descartes Peoplevox
7. Pick and sort as you go
Often, it’s not picking that slows your operation down so much as the time taken to sort multi-item orders. If you sort the items you pick into totes on a trolley or cart, one order per tote, by the time you have finished your pick run, you make packing and shipping those orders much less of an undertaking.
Here’s how our customer AYBL Group handles picking and sorting workflows:
8. Gamify your work
By putting dashboards up in the warehouse, you can show everyone working who is the fastest picker, who has packed the most orders, and who is lagging behind. No one wants to be last, come the end of the day!
Some teams also set up competitions with prizes for the fastest pickers. There’s nothing like a good competition to motivate people. It works best when everyone has visibility and the technology to accurately track results.
9. Learn from other brands
Stand-out brands like Gymshark, Goodfair, AYBL Group, and Aver Active once stood in the same spot, asking the same questions as you. They felt the pressure to pick orders faster to keep up with growing volumes and peaks without the warehouse falling over.
These brands each found purpose-built solutions and workflows to level up warehouse operations, and you can, too. Read stories and watch videos to learn from the brands that inspire you.