Good order picking reduces the number of returns
Nothing is as annoying as that your customer receives a wrong article or number as a result of false order picking. The client orders a certain article in a certain number and expects that the goods ordered will actually be delivered.
It is not his concern that a logistics proces has to start up after he has placed his order. That challenge is for the webshop owner. He has to print an invoice or packinglist and has to make sure that the right article will be shipped.
If you, as a webshop owner, have an assortment that is very similar to each other, this can be difficult. Suppose you have a webshop in toys with an assortment of more than 1000 pieces, in which 1 type of bead can have more colors and more sizes. A mistake can than happen very easily. And the results will be dramatic. The articles that the client received have to be returned and go back into the inventory and a new shipment has to be made. You will have to ship a lot of flawless orders to earn that back.
Coding is the solution
To have a well performed order picking proces you will have to go coding. To each type of bead, the so called Stock Keeping Unit, (SKU) you will give an unique label. In this label you can work with a logical code. For instance the first two or three letters of the product, followed by the first two letters of the color, followed by the size. In this case a bead in the color red and a size of 12 mm will get the following label; BERE12.
As said you can vary in this as you like. Does your assortment go wider later with for instance pendants, than those labels will start with PE. Doing so you will get a logical inventory of your assortment. If your storage follows these codes and your have connected the codes to your product description on your website, than order picking will be a piece of cake. The SKU codes are printed on your packinglist, and you search in your systematic storage system for the right code and pick your products.
Orderpicking with barcode scanners
Order picking by voice, by light, by …
As your webshop grows than you might consider to outsource your logistics to a fulfillment company that will handle the orders for you. You can than focus even more on the development of your webshop and the fulfillment company will provide an efficient logistic proces for you. Big chance that the order picking wil than be a part of an automatic system.