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Pick to Light for e-commerce fulfillment: multi-order picking without mix-ups

In e-commerce, Pick to Light uses a light to show the picker which order on the cart, or which slot in the put wall, the item in hand belongs to. Nobody reads pick lists or hunts for locations, so one person picks several orders in a single trip. The result is up to 50% faster picking, up to 90% fewer errors and fewer returns caused by wrong sizes or colours.

At a glance

  • Several orders picked in one trip
  • In-house pick to light development since 2018
  • New staff productive in about 30 minutes

Why online retailers outgrow paper-based picking

A typical online order has only a few lines, but there are hundreds or thousands of them every day. Picking one order at a time sends staff down the same aisles again and again, paper lists slow them down and every wrong size or colour turns into a complaint, a return shipment and an unhappy customer. During Black Friday or Christmas, temporary staff arrive with no time for long training.

Pick to Light for e-commerce fulfillment: multi-order picking without mix-ups

How Pick to Light speeds up e-commerce dispatch

Multi-order picking cart

The cart carries totes for several orders. At each location the light on the cart shows which tote gets the item and how many. It talks to the system over WiFi and its Li-Ion battery lasts a full working day.

Put wall for batch picking

With many small orders, goods are picked in bulk and split at the put wall. After a scan, the right slot lights up, and a completed order signals that it is ready to pack.

Fewer mix-ups, fewer complaints

Every put is confirmed by a button or an optical sensor, so a mistake is caught at the rack rather than by a customer who received someone else's goods.

Ready for seasonal peaks

Temporary staff do not need to know the range; they follow the light. Capacity grows cart by cart or slot by slot as order volumes rise.

How it works

  1. 1Your shop platform or WMS releases orders and the system groups them into a wave for one cart or put wall.
  2. 2Totes on the cart are paired with specific orders.
  3. 3At the rack the picker takes the item and the light on the cart shows the tote and quantity.
  4. 4The put is confirmed by button or sensor and the confirmation reaches the WMS in real time.
  5. 5Completed orders go straight to packing, or through the put wall first when picked in batches.

WMS and ERP integration

Orders come from your WMS or ERP via REST API, MQTT or WebSocket, and confirmations flow back in real time. If your shop has no warehouse system, you can use our Logisio WMS, or our CI4 control software provides the required logic. A test environment is available, so the integration is debugged before the first cart goes live.

Software

What to prepare for an inquiry

  • Orders per day in normal operation and at peak
  • Average number of lines per order
  • Number of SKUs and type of shelving
  • Which shop platform, WMS or ERP you use
  • Whether you prefer cart picking or batch picking with a put wall

Frequently asked questions

Yes. You can start with a single cart and test the benefit in day-to-day operation. If it works for you, add more carts or a put wall step by step as order volumes grow. There is no need to equip the whole warehouse at once, and we can fit the technology to a cart you already own, which keeps the first step small.

It depends on your order profile. A cart suits orders with more lines and larger warehouses, because one picker handles several orders per trip. A put wall pays off with high volumes of small orders: goods are picked in bulk and split into orders only at the wall. In practice the two are often combined.

Operating the system means following the light and confirming the put. Training therefore takes about 30 minutes and requires no knowledge of the product range or where items are stored. At peak you add capacity with people rather than long courses, and the system still checks every put a newcomer makes.

The Zuty (Westlogic) online shop warehouse struggled with complaints and too little capacity at peak times. After deploying a sortwall that sorts several orders at once, complaints fell to nearly zero, the operation saved 2 people per shift and order processing became significantly faster. The case study has the details.

Shall we look at your operation?

Send us your number of locations, orders and shifts – we will propose a setup and a payback estimate.