If you’ve been searching for a fulfillment solution, especially for your bundles and subscriptions, you’ve probably started seeing tips and tricks from other businesses. Packing slips. ERPs. Warehouse management software. A whole host of apps, from ones you know to names you’ve never heard of in your life.

Plus, whatever a picklist is.

So...you’re overwhelmed. Where do you start? Do you even start?!

Plenty of businesses have pressed pause on their product bundling journey right here, but with the right tools, it’s easier than you think.

Read on to learn about

What a picklist is
How to generate a picklist
How to create a picklist with a bundle SKU or subscription order

What is a picklist?

A picklist is a document that tells your warehouse pickers which items are needed to fulfill a customer’s order.

Picklist vs. packing slip: What’s the difference?

Check your latest package. Chances are, it arrived with a packing slip—yes, that sheet with your name, address, and long list of items you bought. Isn’t that what a picklist is?

Not quite. While a packing slip can be used as a picklist in smaller businesses, they’re not the same thing. First off, packing slips are both internal and customer-facing. Customers will use them to check that they’ve received all the items they bought, which means it’s yet another moment you can use to show them the best of your brand. Add a little flare, some color, and maybe even links to your socials for more exposure!

Picklists, on the other hand, are purely internal, and include information that only your pickers need to know. Your customers won’t care about where their shoes were located in your warehouse, or that their blue dress had a different SKU than that yellow one. And you don’t need them to see the inner workings of a bundle or subscription box filled with surprise freebies!

So what makes a good picklist?

You can learn specific details about picking methods for large businesses, like zone and batch picking, from this ShipBob article, but here, we’re going to focus on picking-to-order. This means that each order will have one picklist sent directly to the picker.

Your single-order picklist should include the following:

Product SKUs
Warehouse aisle and item numbers
Product variants (color, size, style)
Product images or descriptions
Order quantity
Limitations, like expedited shipping

You’ll also need to know what kind of picklist you’ll be using to decide what to include. Your picklist can be either

A physical picklist
A digital picklist

If you’ll be printing your picklists, it’s helpful to add customer information, like name and address. While this may not help your picker, your picklist will also be used by your packers and labelers to make sure the package reaches the right customer.

And if you’ll be sending picklists to your pickers’ phones or tablets, it’ll be easier to add higher-resolution imagery or other details to ensure that they're grabbing the right items.

How do I generate a picklist?

There are two parts of the order fulfillment process in which it makes sense to generate a picklist:

During order management
At your warehouse

1. Create your picklist during order management

While this method may seem like more work on your part, it means you control everything about your picklists: from how you create them, to what the warehouse receives and uses. If you’re using Shopify, you can choose from a selection of picklist apps in the Shopify app store, like Kisuka’s Order Picklist. Or, you can use Cleverific’s Edit Order to send detailed information, like expanded SKUs, directly to your warehouse to complement its picklist system.

2. Work with your warehouse or an outside resource

You can also always reach out to your warehouse and work with the team there to create a picklist that works for your business. Many businesses partner with 3PL services or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems that handle these processes for them, although this requires additional planning and research if these resources aren’t already in place. This method can also leave important details about the fulfillment of your products in another team’s hands, which sometimes results in more errors and setbacks.

What happens if I have a bundle SKU or subscription order?

If your bundles and subscriptions are only showing up under one SKU, creating an effective picklist becomes a little more complicated.

While this works for a packing slip (a customer checking that they’ve received the right bundle), it means extra work for you to get your pickers the individual SKUs they need to do their job. It also means that, for your subscriptions, there’s no way to keep track of the send dates of individual items or add and remove items with visible proof of the job done.

So what’s the solution?

Your first course of action if you’re working with an outside source or directly with your warehouse is to reach out. They’ll be able to tell you more about what’s possible and what’s not in their facilities. ShipStation, for example, doesn’t support product kits and bundles, and requires businesses to send that information from a different platform.

For Shopify fulfillment, though, there’s already an easy solution. Edit Order allows you to set up a workflow that automatically expands a single SKU into individual items with separate SKUs and quantities. From the customer’s side, they’ll just see that single bundle, but your pickers will have all the information they need to choose products quickly and accurately.

Take the next step to smooth and efficient order fulfillment

Learn how to expand bundles with Edit Order + Shopify Flow
Continue to streamline your warehouse process with kitting
Read about picking methods, types of picklists, and more
Find apps that can help you generate a picklist like Order Picklist
Get order-editing options, fulfillment automation, and more with Edit Order

What is a picklist? Prep your warehouse for quick and easy order fulfillment