Warehouse software uses a lot of terms for what's basically "how do we get the right things off the shelf." Here's what each one means for a Shopify team, and which ones are worth your time.
Picking methods
Discrete (order-by-order) picking
One picker, one order, start to finish, then the next order. It's simple and hard to mix up, but slow: the picker walks the same aisles for every order. Fine for a handful of orders a day.
Batch picking
Group many orders and pick the total quantity of each item in one walk, then sort items into orders at the packing bench. It's the biggest single time saver for most small teams, and it's how a Pickadoodl batch works by default.
Cart (or tote) picking
A variation on batch picking: a cart carries one tote per order, and each item goes straight into its order's tote as it's picked. Sorting happens on the floor instead of at the bench. It works well for many small orders. See cart picking.
Wave picking
Batches released on a schedule, like a 9am wave and a 1pm wave, often timed to carrier pickups. If you already pick in a morning and an afternoon run, you're wave picking.
Zone picking
Each picker owns an area of the warehouse and picks only the items in it. Orders pass from zone to zone or get combined at the end. It pays off in big warehouses with several pickers, and is usually overkill below that.
Documents and terms
- Pick list
- What to pull from the shelves: items, quantities and locations, often across many orders. For the warehouse, not the customer.
- Packing slip
- What's in one order's box, for the customer and the packer. One per order, usually with the shipping address and a thank-you note.
- Bin location
- Where an item lives, like
A2-3for aisle A, bay 2, shelf 3. In Shopify, it's often stored in a product metafield. - Pick path
- The order a picker walks the bins. A good pick list is sorted to match it.
- Short pick
- Fewer units on the shelf than the list asks for. The orders that need the item should be held, not shipped incomplete.
- Mis-pick
- The wrong item, size or variant picked. Scanning catches most of these.
- Scan to verify
- Scanning each unit's barcode to confirm it matches the list, at the shelf, at the box, or both.
- WMS
- Warehouse management system: software that runs receiving, storage, picking and shipping across a warehouse. Most small Shopify teams need a pick and pack app, not a WMS.
Which method fits a small Shopify team?
- Under about 30 orders a day: discrete picking from a printed list is fine.
- 30 to a few hundred: batch picking with a bin-sorted list, picked in two or three waves a day.
- Lots of small, multi-item orders: cart picking, so orders are sorted as they're picked.
- Several pickers in a large space: consider zones, but try batches with picker links first.
