Pick and Pack
Pick and Pack
Pick and Pack is an e-commerce fulfilment service offered by RedSky Europe to e-commerce retailers. It is the form of order fulfilment most commonly chosen by online retailers. Customer orders are received into our warehouse management system (WMS) from virtual shopping carts and third-party selling platforms around the web. The orders are then picked, packed, and shipped from our Ecommerce distribution centre.Â
Speedy Picking
The picking action that makes up ‘Pick and Pack’, involves navigating the Ecommerce warehouse to find products that make up the customer order. ‘Picking’ is the process of pulling individual products from large shelves and cartons in inventory storage. At RedSky Europe, picking involves an operative identifying the location of the required product and pulling the products accordingly.
Packing With Care
After picking, comes packing. Packing involves placing the picked products into an envelope or box for delivery, along with the appropriate filling, such as bubble wrap or dunnage. The product is then ready to be shipped to the customer’s address.
Benefits of Pick & Pack
By choosing RedSky Europe, you have the immediate advantage of a professional team on hand to process your orders. Working with a distribution centre that offers Pick & Pack as a service, makes it an easy process for online retailers to offer a wide variety of products online to customers. This will in turn result in more sales, as generally, the more a business offers, the more it sells.
The Pick & Pack process
The Pick & Pack process determines the efficiency of order fulfilment services. At RedSky Europe, each product stored in inventory has a unique location and SKU (stock keeping unit). Two products in different sizes will have two unique SKUs. There are often many variations of products which would result in unique SKUs for each one. The pick & pack process has been designed to accommodate orders of various sizes. In order to have a smooth and effective pick & pack order fulfilment solution, organisation, coordination, and attention to detail are required at the highest level. At RedSky Europe, our team of skilled operatives fill orders efficiently, accurately, and within a timely manner on a daily basis.
Pick & pack strategies
At RedSky Europe, we employ 4 primary Pick & Pack strategies:
1. Piece Picking
Piece picking is the simplest order fulfilment strategy. It involves a warehouse operative hand picking each item for entire orders as they come into the RedSky Europe warehouse management system. It is done individually on an order by order basis. It works well for smaller businesses who may only have a few orders coming in everyday.
2. Batch Picking
Batch picking is a highly efficient picking method. It is the process of picking items for identical orders at the same time, as opposed to picking items individually or those with different SKUs and or quantities. The goal of employing the batch picking strategy is to improve operational efficiency using batches of orders so trips are reduced to each location. There are four steps involved in batch picking: Develop a picking list (per order) Group identical orders together (a batch) Assign pickers to each batch Pickers go and pick items
3. Zone Picking
Zone Picking is a suitable technique for big distribution warehouses such as RedSky Europe’s. It refers to a distribution centre operative being responsible for a specific area within the fulfilment centre. They will then pick from this area of the warehouse exclusively. It requires complex organisation and coordination, as each zone must be smoothly run and where the products are sent from here must be monitored and manned.
4. Wave Picking
At RedSky Europe, when zone picking and batch picking are combined, it results in wave picking. RedSky Europe employees are assigned to specific zones and will pick multiple orders at once. It is efficient and the most effective order fulfilment strategy for most. Similar to zone picking, as the warehouse operatives do not move from their zone, it requires detailed organisation and planning to work effectively.