Picking

Table of Contents

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What is Picking?

Picking is locating and collecting ordered products from inventory before sending them for packaging and shipping. 

Picking can be carried out manually using barcodes, picking slips, or data entry. On the other hand, automated picking includes gathering items using machines or robots. Automated picking is widely used and increases efficiency.

Significance of Picking in E-commerce Logistics

Picking is an essential part of order fulfillment, and sellers should ensure correct items/orders are picked. With proper picking procedures, businesses can expect smoother warehousing operations and satisfied customers. 


Some benefits of picking in e-commerce logistics are listed below:

  • Reduces delayed delivery: With the correct warehousing and picking arrangements, companies can efficiently pack and ship out their orders. Hence, picking influences the order fulfillment timeline. 
  • Enhances efficiency: With a wide range of order-picking methods available, picking can enhance overall efficiency in terms of costs, work output, and time management.
  • Systemizes warehousing: Picking involves more than just manual labor since it also performs checks on the warehousing procedure. This eventually results in the provision of cooperative work of one process with another. Hence, warehouses run in a more systematic manner.

Prerequisites for Picking and How It Works

Companies must adhere to specific requirements in order to practice picking, which are as follows:

  • Efficient executive and extraction unit
  • Systematic warehousing
  • Trolleys, runs, pallets, and other things to move goods from one place to the other
  • Reliable transporters

Once these conditions are met, organizations must execute a few steps to finalize the picking process. Here is a summary of these activities:

  1. The preparation of the order, which includes data collection and sorting of orders to be delivered. 
  2. Traveling from the area of operations to the location of the product and back to the area of operations. 
  3. Carrying out the extraction process, which involves picking the correct orders. 
  4. Lastly, the products are verified, followed by sealing, weighing, labeling, and transporting them to the shipping area.

Use Case With Picking

Picking is the first step in order fulfillment, and hence, it should be carried out with care. A simple use case of picking is as follows:

Consider a business XYZ that has received an order consisting of 5 different products. Subsequently, a warehouse worker uses manual or automated methods to pick the different products from the warehouse before proceeding with packaging.

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