What is a pick list?
A pick list (or picking list) is the list of items to collect from storage to fill one or more orders. It’s different from a packing slip: the pick list is for the person walking the shelves, the packing slip goes in the box for the customer. Many small shops use the packing slip as a pick list at first, and that works until orders have more than a couple of items or you have more than one shelf.
What to put on a pick list
| Column | Why it’s there |
|---|---|
| Bin | Where to go. This is the column that saves the most time. If you don’t have bin labels yet, start with bin locations. |
| Product | What to take, in words a person recognizes. |
| SKU | To tell similar products apart: sizes, colours, versions. |
| Quantity | How many. Make it big and bold; “2” is the line people miss. |
| Order | Which order it belongs to, when one list covers several orders. |
| Picked | A tick box, so a picker who gets interrupted knows where they were. |
Sort it by bin, not by order
A store export lists items in the order the customer added them. Re-sort the list by bin so it follows your walking route: A1, A2, A3, then B1. The picker then walks the shelves once, start to finish, instead of zig-zagging. When one list covers several orders, this is batch picking, and sorting by bin is what makes it fast.
A free pick list template
Here’s the layout above as a spreadsheet you can open in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers: pick list template (CSV). Paste in your orders, fill in each product’s bin, sort by the Bin column, and print.
| Order | Bin | SKU | Product | Qty | Picked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1042 | A2 | MUG-TEAL | Teal mug | 1 | ☐ |
| #1043 | A2 | MUG-TEAL | Teal mug | 1 | ☐ |
| #1042 | B7 | TEA-50 | Green tea 50g | 2 | ☐ |
| #1043 | C1 | CARD-BDAY | Birthday card | 1 | ☐ |
Paper or phone?
Paper is free and never runs out of battery, but someone has to build the list for every batch, and it goes out of date the moment a product moves bins. A picking app builds the list from your store’s orders as they arrive, keeps bin locations in one place, and can check each item with a barcode scan.
How pickBlink makes the pick list
In pickBlink there’s nothing to build. When an order arrives from your store, its pick list is ready: every item with its bin, sorted in walking order, and the bins light up on a photo of your shelf with the quantity on each. Tick items off as you go or scan their barcodes, and print the packing slip when you’re done. See how it works.