What is pick and pack? How to master order fulfillment

Mastering order fulfillment enables brands, logistics service providers, and other organizations to thrive in a world driven by digital commerce. Consumers have ever-higher standards for what a great experience entails, and taking the time to build out a great pick and pack process is a great way to beat those expectations consistently.

We've compiled the basics of building a great pick and pack process below. We also want to introduce you to some more complex concepts and give you some tips from our experience working with fulfillment centers over many years to avoid common pitfalls.

Key Takeaways

• Understand the Basics: Learn what pick and pack is and why it's crucial for your business.
• Step-by-Step Process: Get detailed insights into receiving, picking, packing, and shipping orders.
• Optimize Methods: Discover various fulfillment methods to use, like piece, batch, bulk, zone, and wave picking.
• Warehouse Setup Tips: Find out how to arrange your warehouse for maximum efficiency.
• Leverage Technology: Explore the benefits of using pick and pack software.
• Reap the Benefits: Understand how this process can reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction.

What is pick and pack?

Pick and pack is an essential process in order fulfillment that involves selecting items from inventory and packing them for shipment. This process, when done well, becomes a cornerstone of your warehouse logistics and allows your warehouse staff to fulfill orders accurately and quickly. By focusing on these tasks, you can enhance your efficiency and customer satisfaction. Understanding pick and pack helps ensure that you consistently meet the demands of your customers.

Getting order received for pick and pack

When someone, like a customer, places an order, you want your fulfillment team to be notified as soon as possible, if not immediately. The faster your team is informed about an order, the quicker they can take action to complete the order fulfillment process. The speed at which customer orders transition from being received to being processed can make or break your fulfillment efficiency.

Seamless communication is crucial for efficient order management. The details of the order, including the item list and shipping information, should be automatically sent to your fulfillment team's system of record. This could be a warehouse management system, inventory management system, order management system, or even an ERP.

Integrating channels with your pick and pack system

A common way to get orders from online stores, marketplaces, ordering systems, or other channels is by software integration. This can be done using pre-built connections within systems, a 3rd party integration tool, or custom development by API.

Integrations allow your fulfillment team to start creating an efficient pick and pack process, as well as plan more effective order processing. Effective order processing means your team can start picking items right away, reducing delays and keeping customers happy. By automating order receipt, you streamline operations, minimize manual errors, and ensure a smooth flow from order to shipment.

Manual order entry, if you just need to get started

If you have to do this process manually to start with, you can. Many pick and pack systems support manual order entry or bulk order uploads. Just keep in mind that your process will quickly run into scalability challenges, limiting the overall benefits you'll receive from a great pick and pack process over time.

The pick and pack process

The secret to efficient order fulfillment lies in how you choose to structure your pick, pack, and ship process. This process forms the backbone of getting products from your warehouse into the hands of your customers. Each step has a role to play in ensuring accuracy, speed, and customer satisfaction, which are all crucial for maintaining a successful e-commerce operation.

What is order picking?

Order picking is the initial stage where warehouse workers locate items in storage based on detailed order information. The picking process is integral to minimizing errors and improving customer satisfaction. Accurate picking ensures that the right products reach the right customers, reducing the chances of returns or complaints.

Efficiency in picking heavily relies on a well-organized inventory. The faster your staff can pick items, the quicker you can fulfill orders, enhancing your store's reputation for reliability. Different pick and pack methods can be employed to optimize this process, depending on your warehouse layout and order volume.

What is order packing?

Once items are picked, the next step is order packing. Here, staff place the selected items into appropriate packaging for shipment. The right choice of packing materials is essential to protect products during transit and enhance your brand's presentation. A well-thought-out packing station setup can significantly boost efficiency and reduce errors at the packing station.

Effective packing ensures that all components of an order are included, preventing customer dissatisfaction. By optimizing pack services, you can reduce shipping costs and time. Packing staff must be meticulous in their work to maintain high standards and ensure that each package meets customer expectations.

How do you ship orders?

Shipping is the step where your team creates shipping labels for outbound packages with customer addresses, tracking, and other transportation information. Your chosen shipping partner then picks up these shipments for delivery to your customers.

A reliable shipping process can significantly enhance your store's reputation, as consistent delivery times build customer confidence. By optimizing your order shipping processes, you can improve logistics, streamline operations at fulfillment centers, and keep your customers satisfied.

Pick and pack fulfillment methods

Choosing the best pick and pack methods for each order fulfillment situation can make a big difference in how efficiently you process orders in your warehouse. Different methods for picking and packing, like piece picking, batch picking, zone picking, and wave picking, can help improve overall efficiency in a big way when used correctly.

Piece Picking

In piece picking, staff focus on picking individual items one by one for each individual order. This method is ideal for small businesses with low order volumes, as it reduces complexity. It can, however, increase the time spent fulfilling customer orders, which can be a trade-off.

Effective piece picking relies on clear order lists and well-organized warehouse shelves. While it may not be the fastest method, it's perfect for businesses prioritizing accuracy and personalization in their order picking processes.

Batch Picking

Batch picking involves collecting items for several orders in a single batch. This method is similar to piece picking but is more efficient than piece picking for your warehouse picker because it reduces travel time between picking locations. It works well for businesses dealing with similar order compositions, where many orders require the same items.

Batch picking can bring big boosts in your team's productivity, making it a popular choice for medium-sized operations. With an effective order fulfillment strategy, batch picking will help to streamline warehouse operations and improve overall output.

Bulk Picking

Bulk picking is the process of picking a large quantity of a single item (e.g., a full case or pallet) to fulfill many orders at a time, or a single large order.

This method boosts efficiency because it lowers the stops in a picking path needed to pick products by retrieving large quantities at once. This is helpful for large orders or a group of orders that all need the same product.

Zone Picking

Zone picking divides the warehouse into specific zones, with staff assigned to each area. Workers pick items specific to their zone for multiple orders, which reduces congestion and streamlines movement within large warehouses.

Coordinated zone picking requires precise communication and a well-thought-out warehouse layout. By optimizing your inventory management system and workflows, you can enhance the efficiency of a pick and pack warehouse.

Wave Picking

Wave picking allows staff to pick orders in waves based on specific parameters, like shipping deadlines. The wave picking method optimizes fulfillment by order priority, like time-sensitivity, for certain orders.

To be successful using wave picking, your team needs to be able to do advanced planning and scheduling. If you use well-planned warehouse processes and a robust order management system, you can improve the speed and accuracy of your fulfillment operations.

To be successful using wave picking, your team needs to be able to do advanced planning and scheduling. If you use well-planned warehouse processes and a robust order management system, you can improve the speed and accuracy of your fulfillment operations.

Single person vs team pick and pack

Deciding between single-person and team-based pick, pack, and ship processes depends on your business's size and order volume.

Single-person picking is when a single team member is able to manage the pick and pack process end-to-end. In contrast, team-based picking and packing breaks up this process so that certain team members are responsible for different steps in the process.

Many organizations typically make this decision for their warehouse or fulfillment center operations based on some level of trial and error. We would just recommend looking out for bottlenecks, workload balancing issues, and physical limits when testing methodologies.

Using a combination of pick and pack methods in your warehouse

Once you understand the main pick and pack strategies and main steps for each method, you can also choose to utilize several of these fulfillment methods to increase the efficiency of your organization or ecommerce business. Good organization and understanding of when to use each approach will help you use each method appropriately.

Examples;

• Create a filter to organize single-product small orders across all products, and leverage bulk picking to grab lots of products at the same time. This allows your team to then pack products into individual orders, reducing travel time around the warehouse and using an assembly line process to pack into appropriate packing materials to fulfill many orders very quickly.
• Then, using batch picking with picking carts for more complicated multi-product orders. This process can be even more efficient by pre-printing labels and grabbing packaging materials ahead of time for the picking cart. Pre-building boxes requires a warehouse management software with a good cartonization system. Finally, your team can pick directly into the final packaging for the order, bypassing packing altogether.

Using warehouse management systems, creating good warehouse systems, or statements of process will make carrying out processes, including pick and pack, much easier for your team.

Setting up your warehouse for pick and pack

A well-organized warehouse is important in pick and pack operations. From your layout to signage, every detail plays a role in streamlining your process and reducing errors.

• Prioritize efficient movement and accessibility in your warehouse layout to help reduce the time spent moving between picks.
• Having clear signage and good organization within the warehouse minimizes picking errors, allowing your fulfillment team to quickly locate and pick the right items.
• Conducting regular layout planning or audits can also increase efficiency and allow the team to adapt to changes in order volume, product offering, or quality issues.

How to leverage pick and pack software in logistics

Implementing software in your warehouse is a great way to boost your pick and pack efficiency. Picking the right inventory and logistics software automates processes, reduces potential errors, and allows for continuous improvement.

Picking the right pick and pack software

Choosing the right pick and pack software is essential, and here is what to look for;

• Make sure the software has a user-friendly interface that improves team adoption and boosts efficiency, making it easier for staff to navigate the system.
• Real-time inventory tracking helps prevent stockouts and overordering, maintaining a balanced inventory.
• Robust reporting provides insights into your order fulfillment process and opportunities for optimization.

Inventory Management Systems

A tool focused specifically on tracking inventory levels and working with inventory. Its most basic job is to tell you how much stock you have and where it is, but many inventory management systems have robust inventory control and workflow features.

Pros: The most focused system and a natural starting point for most simple operations, and can be used to give your order fulfillment team a great way to get started with a strong foundation.

Cons: May need to be an upgradable system that allows you to turn on more advanced features as you go, so you don't need to change systems.

Warehouse Management Systems

A Warehouse Management System, or WMS, is an advanced system that manages the entire day-to-day operation of a warehouse. It includes all the functions of an IMS but adds many layers of operational control. In addition to inventory tracking, a WMS manages receiving, pick and pack fulfillment, shipping, and labor tracking. It optimizes warehouse layouts and picker travel paths to improve efficiency.

Pros: Comprehensive features that allow your fulfillment team to cover almost all their needs in a single software solution.

Cons: Long implementation times can cause you to risk having a fast enough time-to-value to justify starting with this type of system from day one.

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

An Enterprise Resource Planning system is the broadest and most comprehensive of the three in terms of use cases. It's a single, integrated software suite that manages a company's entire business. It can include accounting, HR, manufacturing, supply chain management, and even a CRM. The WMS and IMS functions are often just one part or module of an ERP system.

Pros: If your team already uses an ERP, some systems can be upgraded, or modules could be purchased to help handle pick and pack fulfillment.

Cons: This is usually not a purpose-built part of the software that can go deep to fit your fulfillment team's needs. This option can quickly become an expensive and inefficient way to solve a problem. It may be better to leverage a system that talks with your ERP than to try to get your ERP to handle pick and pack.

No dedicated system: Using channel web fulfillment features

Some marketplaces or shopping carts, used for ecommerce or online ordering, have simple order fulfillment features. Common features include packing slip or shipping label generation features. These may be helpful before you need to establish a more professional process for pick and pack fulfillment.

Pros: May already be built into the ecommerce platforms or channels you already use for order capture.

Cons: These simple tools are there for the convenience of smaller organizations, just getting started, and typically have poor performance at any real volume or lack actual workflows for the pick and pack process.

Benefits of pick and pack fulfillment

Mastering the pick and pack process can help to reduce overhead in your fulfillment center, increase customer satisfaction by reducing errors, boost efficiency to handle more volume, and create a happier fulfillment team.

Lower fulfillment center costs

Streamlining operations can cut labor and inventory storage expenses, helping your business save on fulfillment center costs. Having efficient processes reduces waste and costly errors. These savings can now be reinvested in other areas of the organization.

Better customer experiences

Accurate and timely pick and pack fulfillment enhances customer satisfaction, building trust and encouraging repeat business. Happy customers buy more often and share great brand experiences for organic marketing. By optimizing your order fulfillment process, you can ensure customer retention and loyalty.

Scalable order fulfillment capacity

Having efficient pick and pack processes in place lets your team scale up capacity as order volumes grow. Ensure you can meet customer demand without sacrificing quality by investing in scalable systems that increase fulfillment capacity while optimizing labor costs.

Lower turnover and a happier team

A well-organized pick and pack fulfillment system is important for employee retention and creating a happier, more effective team. You can replace the daily stress of a chaotic warehouse with;

• Creating clear, guided instructions, the process eliminates guesswork and empowers workers to succeed.
• Optimizing picking routes to reduce travel times and using barcode scanners increases accuracy.
• Continuous improvement leading to lower turnover, reduced training costs, and a great company culture.

Should I try outsourcing pick and pack to a fulfillment partner?

The answer to this question really depends on your situation, unique needs, and capacity to handle your own pick and pack fulfillment. The benefits of using a 3PL or third-party logistics fulfillment service provider may be that the fulfillment provider could take some of the workload of managing inventory, the warehouse, shipping, and other parts of the ecommerce fulfillment process. Some of the downsides may be that you lose control over the ability to tailor how your team handles inventory to meet your customers' standards, or how customizable your pick and pack fulfillment process can be.

Managing your own warehouse and fulfillment team in-house puts you in the driver's seat, and with some work, allows you to build the best experience for your customers from checkout to delivery.

Considerations for ecommerce fulfillment or omnichannel fulfillment

• Use the same packaging, packing slips, or other package additions to create real omnichannel brand experiences. Make sure the 3PL can account for these special fulfillment considerations. Otherwise, consider in-house fulfillment or a different 3PL.
• Channel integration is vital to enable 3PLs to fulfill orders quickly. Many software options like ours include an extensive library of pre-built integrations to ensure a timely order receipt process.
• Proximity to customers is also a key consideration, as it determines how fast your orders are delivered.

Advanced pick and pack services like kitting, lot control, expiration dates, or serial number management

If any of the above are requirements, make sure to choose a 3PL that has these advanced operational and software capabilities. Sometimes brands with complex requirements in-source fulfilment or provide software to their 3PLs to use for this reason.

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