Efficient logistics is at the heart of every successful and perfectly aligned supply chain. And two hyper essential processes that keep things moving are picking and packing. Surprisingly, order picking alone can be responsible for approximately 55% of a facility’s total labour costs, highlighting its significance in supply chain operations.
Whether you’re working hard to establish or grow an eCommerce business or manage a large warehouse, thoroughly understanding picking and packing can streamline operations, cut costs, and elevate customer satisfaction.
This article will familiarise you with everything you need to know about picking and packing, why they’re so important, how they work, and the best practices to optimise them.
Picking and packing are the activities that help you select items from your inventory (picking) and prepare them for shipping (packing). These two business processes may sound straightforward, but their complexity increases with order volume, variety, and customer demands.
Picking means gathering the items needed for an order from their storage spots in a warehouse. It could be as simple as grabbing one book from a shelf or collecting several items from different sections of the warehouse to complete the order.
Packing is initiated once all the items in an order are picked up from their location. It includes securely placing the products in boxes, adding protective packaging materials, and labelling the packages correctly for delivery so that they arrive intact at their destination.
If you’re shipping fragile items like glassware, cover them with bubble wrap or foam inserts inside the box to keep them safe. Then, seal them in a sturdy outer box with water-resistant tape to protect them from damage during transit. Adding labels like “Fragile” or “This Side Up,” with the correct barcodes and shipping details, helps delivery workers treat your package appropriately to ensure its safety until arrival.
Picking and packing products efficiently is the backbone of smooth and cost-effective delivery operations. You end up paying extra or bearing losses when items are picked or packed incorrectly; they lead to returns, reshipments, and dissatisfied customers. As you optimise these processes, it reduces errors and even saves you time and costs.
For instance, workers and robots at Amazon warehouses accurately pick and pack millions of orders daily. Amazon’s Robot Induction (Robin) fleet handles about 6 million packages daily, with over 2 billion packages manipulated during the evaluation period. These AI tools have streamlined the eCommerce giant’s picking and packing. Consequently, Amazon has greatly enhanced its sorting accuracy, bringing a 50% improvement across its fulfilment centres.
The situation gets even more complicated for businesses that operate during peak seasons, such as holidays or festivals. Take Flipkart’s ‘Big Billion Days’ sales in 2024, for example. The company reported a 2.5-fold increase in same-day delivery volumes. These excessive orders were managed through streamlined picking and packing processes, which helped ensure timely and accurate order fulfilment during this high-demand period.
A few benefits of optimised picking and packing will highlight their importance better:
The process of picking and packing generally follows these six steps:
When a customer places an order, the warehouse system records it and creates a list of the items needed for the order.
Workers or machines go to the right places in the warehouse to grab the listed items. A service like BigBasket organises this by dividing the warehouse into zones, making it faster to pick.
After the items are picked, they’re grouped to match each customer’s order, ensuring all the products are in the right place.
Before packing, the items are checked to make sure they’re not damaged or incorrect.
The items are carefully packed in boxes with padding to protect them. Labels with shipping details and barcodes are added for easy tracking.
The packed order is sent to the dispatch area and handed over to a delivery service to get it to the customer.
Warehouses use different order picking methods depending on their order volume, product type, and customers’ needs.
It involves picking one order at a time, which is highly suitable for smaller operations. Small eCommerce stores, for example, fulfil a few orders each day, picking items one by one for each customer.
In batch picking, workers pick items for multiple orders at once. This reduces the time spent walking around the warehouse. For instance, a cosmetics company like Nykaa may group all orders for lipsticks or perfumes and pick them up simultaneously before sorting them.
In this method, a business divides its warehouses into specific areas (or zones), and workers pick items from their assigned zones. For example, grocery stores may divide the warehouse into sections for fresh produce, packaged foods, and beverages, with workers focusing only on their zone.
This is a combination of batch and zone picking. Orders are grouped together and picked in waves, usually based on delivery schedules. Big companies like Walmart use wave picking during busy times, like holidays, to manage high order volumes efficiently.
For packing, warehouses might use:
You can implement many best practices for picking and packing to achieve peak efficiency. Some effective ones are as follows:
Having a Warehouse Management System can optimise picking routes, reduce errors, and improve inventory visibility. For instance, utilising integrated order processing for your inventory system can increase productivity by 25%, stock use efficiency by 30%, and space consumption by 20% for your business. Shipping companies like Shiprocket use such advanced systems to achieve accurate order fulfilment each time.
Integrating new-age automated systems with your existing ones can speed up the picking and packing process and reduce labour dependency. Recent market research shows that warehouse automation can easily cut labour costs by 60% and decrease operational errors by 99%.
These tools predict the best picking routes, improve inventory sorting, and automate quality control in packaging. For instance, Shiprocket Fulfilment uses AI-powered automation tools to optimise picking and packing.
You must store those frequently ordered items in easily accessible areas to minimise picking time. Amazon’s chaotic storage system might seem random to you, but it’s actually designed for maximum efficiency.
If you have skilled staff familiar with processes and tools, they can handle picking and packing more precisely. It reduces the number of errors and saves you time and unnecessary costs.
Try using packaging that can protect your items and impress customers at the same time. Investing in sturdy, eco-friendly materials ensures that your inventory is protected during transit and also satisfies today’s increasingly eco-conscious customers.
The future of picking and packing is tied closely to technology and sustainability. As eCommerce is growing at an unprecedented rate, businesses need better ways to make these processes faster, smarter, and greener.
AI systems can now predict order patterns, find the quickest routes to pick items, and suggest the best packaging for specific orders. Alibaba, for instance, uses AI to manage its massive fulfilment centres efficiently.
Automation is changing warehouses’ picking and packing game, with tools from autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) to robotic picking arms. Companies like Ocado use these robots to pick up thousands of items per hour.
More businesses are adopting eco-friendly packaging materials and practices to reduce their carbon footprint. Brands like H&M now use recycled materials for packaging to align with their sustainability goals.
AR glasses can guide warehouse staff to locate and pick items faster by overlaying directions onto their field of view. It increases the visibility of items and makes it easier to find them. By incorporating augmented reality into daily operations, warehouses can significantly reduce picking errors and improve overall efficiency.
In logistics, picking and packing are the main components to ensure products are retrieved and packaged suitably for delivery. These processes are the foundation of any successful business operation.
As businesses grow and customer expectations change, improving these processes is not just a good idea; it’s a must for increasing speed, accuracy, and happy customers.
You can do this by using the right methods and new technologies. If you’re new to logistics or want to improve your current system, now is the time to focus on optimising picking and packing with experienced companies like Shiprocket Fulfillment.
Businesses need more than quality products and marketing strategies to impress customers in this digital era. How quickly and efficiently…
Choosing the right warehouse company in Mumbai is key to managing your storage and distribution effectively. With Mumbai’s fast-paced business…
As more and more customers turn to eCommerce, analysts expect ‘return’ rates to increase along. In 2022, the eCommerce return…
Running a business is a tedious task. You never know how it will turn out in the coming month or…
Rajkot is a vibrant city in Gujarat with many thriving eCommerce businesses. These businesses require top-class logistics services to deliver…
When it comes to delivering products to merchants and consumers, it is more than just placing packages into trucks and…