A PRACTICAL GUIDE ONHOW TO MAKE YOUR PICK & PACK PROCESS MORE EFFICIENT

2

IS YOUR PICK & PACK PROCESS READY TO SCALE?

Deloitte’s 2016 Holiday survey revealed that online retailers continue to be shoppers’ first choice for their holiday shopping needs, and in a recent report on eCommerce fulfilment, PowerRetail and Deloitte uncovered 30% of Australian retailers felt efficiency was the single biggest challenge in order fulfilment. With most customers starting their online shopping in November, this is the perfect time to prepare your team for the rapid increase in order volume that’s about to hit online retailers everywhere.

We sat down with our head of Logistics, Dominic Culbert, to draw on 20 years of experience across a multitude of warehouses for best practices to help you drive quick and efficient processes during the busiest time of year.

3

STRUCTURE IS KEY

Dom stresses structure and preparation are essential in getting orders moving orders quickly. Here are some quick wins to help you make your warehouse flow as efficient as possible:

Transport and motion are two of the easiest inefficiencies to control for in any warehouse. “Too many retailers have warehouse staff meandering to and from different zones, wasting precious time,” shares Dom. If 20% of your products fuel 80% of sales, why not prioritise access to this inventory?

One of the easiest ways to counter extra travel time in the warehouse, especially during periods of peak demand, is to keep your top selling and most commonly ordered SKUs in a designated zone for quick and easy access by staff. This strategy reduces the amount of movement that staff need to make thereby reducing time taken to pick an order.

Stocking just two size runs of your most popular outfits or simply ordering extra inventory that’s designated is a quick and easy way to make sure product is on hand without a sophisticated demand forecasting tool.

MAKE HIGH-DEMAND GOODS EASILY ACCESSIBLE1

4

// STRUCTURE IS KEY

If re-organising your inventory isn’t possible, Dom recommends picking orders in waves or batches. In basic picking, staff move through the warehouse to pick every SKU in a single order in sequence, this is the simplest way to organise your picking process. Batch picking is the process of picking orders by grouping them by the most frequently ordered items. Batch-picking your orders by common items slashes the back-and-forth time compared to picking orders individually.

Dedicating staff to particular functions in the pick and pack process is another time saving tip. If you have enough staff, consider using a zoned approach where staff work in an assembly line format of pickers and packers. Pickers are assigned to given zones and deliver their picked batch of orders to a packer, who then consolidates, packs and labels these orders.

“Having staff trying to stuff a box that’s just small enough into a satchel can add unnecessary minutes to your packing times.” This is another place Dom recommends standardising and organising wherever possible.

Consider standardising your packaging options and sharing clear guidelines to ensure the most efficient and safe packing process. This approach also gives you an opportunity to minimise wasted space in packaging and bring down your shipping costs.

Pick by Batch – regardless of order volume, suitable if you typically sell just 1-2 items per order, batch picking is your most efficient approach

Pick by Zone – if you have a high frequency of orders with more than 3 items per order, it is best to pick your inventory by zone

Pick by Order – if you have consistent but low order volume but your orders contain 3 or more items then picking order by order is best for you

Use the diagram below to select the right strategy for your business:STOP PICKING ORDERS, START PICKING IN BATCHES OR ZONES

STANDARDIZE YOUR PACKAGING SIZES

2

3

Number of orders

High

Low

Low High

Items per order

Batch Order

Zone

5

ENABLE YOUR TEAM WITH TECHNOLOGY

ORDER FULFILMENT AUTOMATION

While manual fulfilment processes can be run well and are easy to manage, it’s important to enable your team with the right tools to enable pick-and-pack efficiency and evaluate your performance.

Evaluating new technology can be daunting, there are a raft of easy shipping and fulfilment solutions that can make light work of the most complex processes.

Connecting Shippit right from the shopping cart provides an easy way to automate the pick, pack and label process for your team. Automation not only reduces the amount of manual labour required to translate orders into delivery labels but also reduces the risk of human error inherent with double entry of order data.

Taking a leaf out of the fast fashion greats like ASOS, consider using A4 packslips with integrated die-cut labels to put an end to the dreaded label-to-pack matching process. This reduces the number of steps your team needs to take in dispatching orders

1

6

PRIORITISE WHICH ORDERS TO PICK FIRST

USE INSIGHTS TO IMPROVE YOUR PROCESS

If you have established pick-up times with particular carriers or offer express shipping, filtering your orders can help prioritise your picking and packing process. Most fast fashion retailers for example focus on picking and packing express orders first. Retailers that use multiple carriers need to keep their packing process organised so filtering orders to pick by carrier enables real focus and carrier prioritisation.

Using the reporting tab in Shippit, your team can find quickly pin-point where the hold up in getting orders to customers lies. Shippit breaks down time tracking into three key areas:

Time to Ready for Pickup – this is the time it takes you to prepare an order from the time it is placed to the time it is ready for a carrier to collect it.

Time in Ready for Pickup – this is the time it takes for your carriers to collect your orders

Time in Transit – this is the time it takes carriers to deliver an order to your customer from the time they collect it from you.

2

3

// ENABLE YOUR TEAM WITH TECHNOLOGY

7

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT IS KEY

Even when everything is going smoothly, experimenting with new processes is key to continuing your upward trajectory. As your volume grows you must revisit your processes to make sure you are continually cutting fat out of your fulfilment process. A culture of continuous improvement in your warehouse and constant feedback from your team are key to improving the way your performance.

Our most successful retailers keep a close eye on the reporting panel Shippit provides as it helps them best assess carrier performance and customer satisfaction so they can improve upon existing processes.

8

Analyse your freight profile, and benchmark carrier performance at a glance. Give your customers a world-class shipping experience, and improve the way you ship

TRACK COSTS & CARRIER PERFORMANCE

Once shipped, Shippit closes out your orders and automatically populates tracking information so you can notify your customers at time of dispatch!

Once shipped, Shippit closes out your orders and automatically populates tracking information so you can notify your customers at time of dispatch!

See orders that need to be shipped from the very moment they are placed online. Simply confirm the price and get your shipping labels in an instant.

Instantly access discounted shipping rates with leading carriers or bring your own. Our shipping rates cover any freight profile to any destination with no credit checks and no minimum shipping volume.

No need to set complex shipping rules. From packaging recommendations to lowest cost routing, Shippit automates your shipping decisions for you.

ELIMINATE MANUAL DATA ENTRY BEAUTIFUL TRACKING & NOTIFICATIONS

LABEL & SHIP ORDERS IN SECONDSDISCOUNTED RATES SMARTER SHIPPING DECISIONS

ABOUT SHIPPIT

GET IN TOUCH WITH OUR TEAM AT HELLO@SHIPPIT.COM OR 1300 467 447