The Best Pick and Pack Software for Brands, Merchants, and Small Wholesalers

What is Pick and Pack Software?

Pick and pack software is designed to monitor customer orders and produce automated picking lists. These lists serve as a guide for pickers, and warehouse workers that take the packing slip and pick the items from the warehouse shelf. All coordination of this activity happens within the pick and pack software, which may be part of a larger software such as a warehouse management system (WMS).

The system of selecting orders for picking, planning a pick route, and organizing the shipment using barcode scans eliminates the need for paper and reduces packing errors. This ultimately accelerates the fulfillment process. A picking software is utilized by inventory managers to plan picking operations and by warehouse personnel to execute the respective picking orders.

A combination of the correct inventory management and pick and pack software will maximize speed and accuracy.

The pick-pack process is generally done in the following steps:

• Order Receiving: eCommerce sales channels should be connected to the warehouse systems to properly generate packing slips and pick sheets

• Order Picking: The worker takes the digital pick list and picks the items from the shelves using the best fitting methods of picking like a wave, batch, or zone. This can carry depending on business type and sales volume

• Order Packing: Some pick and pack software will now hand over the order to a fulfillment system where the teams take care of packing, sealing, and labeling

• Order Shipping: Produce labels and sort orders by carrier on the loading dock to prepare for the end of day pick-up

The best pick and pack software will be exceptional in these areas:

• Support various picking methods across multiple bin types and bin locations

• Provide standard, customizable templates for picking

• Offer mobile versions of their software and barcode scanning

• Monitor the different picking activities and identify bottlenecks

• Generate picking and packing documents and labels

A reliable pick and pack software will allow operators to easily use the barcode scanner to verify item correctness. After picking the order, a packing list is automatically generated by the software, therefore allowing an item scan which serves as a final confirmation. Despite the existence of some layers of redundancy within the framework, fulfillment solutions will minimize packing errors and ensure single-click marking for all packed units.

Having a tailored pick and pack strategy set up in your business can drastically elevate customer service level and help generate high customer satisfaction. Delivery accounts for up to 75% of the value contained in a positive shopping experience, such is the reason why the top 20% of merchants achieve on-time shipping rates of nearly 99%. These outstanding results reflect a solid customer base and engender significant competitive differentiation.

The best pick and pack software capabilities should make fulfilling any order a simple, streamlined experience. In addition, the system should dictate the way the inventory will be used to fulfill outbound orders correctly from the beginning. Many stores follow this method as they rely heavily on warehouses and fulfillment centers to manage logistics and successfully get items shipped. With scale this process becomes imperil to the ongoing success of any brand.

There are several challenges when implementing a pack and pack process:

• Stock is misplaced: The most common reason relates to stock that has been sold out and failed to be restocked. The other one is simply putting stock in the wrong location. Both are consequences of human error.

• Picking and packing the wrong items: About 23% of customers who return products do so because they received the incorrect items, a negative consequence of handling thousands of orders every day

• Lack of organization: Collaboration is critical to correct order fulfillment and getting the right details requires full-time visibility throughout the pick and pack process

Since these challenges are most certainly present, there are still steps that can be taken to reinforce the entire pick and pack process and highlight the advantage of having the right software for the matter. Such steps are:

• Choose the right strategy: for pick and pack software this refers to picking methods like:

• - Piece picking: Small companies fulfill as orders come in

• - Batch picking: Orders are processed in batches instead of individually

• - Wave picking: Better for large organizations as items are picked from designated areas

• Consider warehouse design: Refers to the location of the products in terms of their closeness to the packaging and shipping area, and the way they are ordered together within their respective warehouse areas. These steps reduce error risk and delay, while maximizing worker productivity

• Use a WMS to automate your processes: Reduce order fulfillment times while improving accuracy and customer satisfaction. Enjoy benefits such as accessibility, analytics, and real time, solid contributors to performance boost

• Take a collaborative approach: Time and resources have to be dedicated to employee training in order to generate the expected results

The Best Pick and Pack Software

Below are the top choices when it comes to pick and pack software. Each business may have different requirements, so we've selected a few options that might serve the needs of various sized businesses or operations strategies.