7 widely overlooked benefits of picking & parts bins

Convenience and fast delivery are two of the main reasons e-commerce sales are growing at such a rapid rate.

But did you know just how important fast delivery actually is?

A recent study reports that almost 8 in 10 online shoppers would switch retailers if the delivery options were not as quick, cheap and convenient as they would like. Almost two-thirds have abandoned purchases after seeing the delivery options were not up to scratch.

Two-thirds are even willing to pay extra to receive same day shipping.

So why don’t more businesses offer faster shipping of orders?

For many, it is due to simply not being able to cope with the additional strain this could put on their warehouse operations.

Picking or parts bins can take a number of forms and are often referred to by a number of different names (pick bins, stacking boxes, shelf bins, to name just a few).

Manufactured from either corrugated cardboard, Correx® or moulded plastic, they are primarily used to organise stock on shelves or in racking, helping to reduce picking times and enabling companies like yours to offer much-reduced lead times to their customers.

So whilst picking bins play a crucial role in helping to fulfil orders more efficiently, the range of other advantages that they offer are often overlooked.

So besides helping your business offer much shorter lead times, what are the other reasons you should be using pick bins?

Well, these are the most commonly overlooked benefits of picking bins…

• Management of stock levels
• Protection from dust/moisture
• Improved sales
• Repeat business
• Allows more holding of stock
• Reduced labour costs
• Staff morale

The rest of this article goes into further detail regarding how the benefits of using picking bins can be applied to your business and the reasons that you should either be looking to incorporate them into your warehouse and order fulfilment processes or how to maximise their effectiveness if you already do so.

A big challenge for any business is running out of stock on crucial lines.

Not only can this upset and annoy customers (particularly if you have already taken payment – only to find out the item is not in stock), it can also lead to losing sales to competitors too.

So whilst picking bins are obviously used for organising stock and allow your team of pickers to retrieve items more quickly and efficiently, a by-product of this is that it allows for much easier visual monitoring of stock levels too.

If stock is organised either by size, colour, material or other common features into different parts bins, it makes it very simple to conduct quick checks by eye to see if particular items are running low.

And whilst you may have an online stock monitoring system, these visual checks can often be extremely useful in acting as an early warning signal, and allowing for replenishment to be managed more effectively.

This way it can help you avoid running out of popular lines, prevents you annoying your customers, and possibly losing sales to a rival.

Warehouses are not always the cleanest environments – and even those that are may still have forklifts entering and exiting, be subject to dust and may see changes in temperature that can lead to condensation and minor moisture build up.

Whilst not necessarily a problem in itself, if the dust, forklift fumes or moisture are able to settle on your inventory it can at best detract from the customer experience, and at worst result in stock that is returned or not fit for sale.

As such, picking bins can play an important role in keeping your inventory clean and safe from damage. This is particularly true of Correx® or plastic versions that prevent moisture ingress, and can also be easily cleaned too.

The impact of not having to write off any stock that has become damaged in storage can often be surprisingly significant, and when coupled with helping to minimise returns (for any products that slip through checks and are sent out when they shouldn’t be) can make a difference to your bottom line.

Similarly to improving your sales, repeat business can also be impacted by the quality – and speed – of service that you offer.

If you provide a customer with a great product, and fair price and that arrives quickly, then they are much more likely to place more orders in the future. But even if you have the first two parts in place – but customers are waiting too long for products – they are likely to look elsewhere when they next order.

Using picking bins to organise your stock and therefore enable quick picking and packing (and therefore dispatch) times, also means that your existing customers will be able to trust you with their urgent and last minute requirements, knowing that you won’t let them down.

A final way that parts bins can help here is using them can vastly reduce the incidence of picking errors. This helps you to reduce returns and further cement the relationship with the users of your products.

A productive workforce is one the key ingredients in being able to offer fast delivery times to your customers.

A motivated team will work hard, process more orders and effectively pick the required products more quickly.

A staff low on morale or enthusiasm will likely be slower, make more mistakes and generally care less about the service your company provides.

But did you know picking bins can help towards your picking teams’ happiness and motivation?

There is nothing more frustrating than looking for something that is near impossible to find. And with a large inventory, which may contain many products that are very similar to each other, if it is not organised well it can be demoralising for your picking team.

Picking bins effectively allow your staff to do their job more easily, helps to avoid frustrations, and allows them the opportunity to hit realistic targets. And all of this can lead back to one thing – improved picking and fulfilment times.

One final benefit of parts bins is that, besides organising your stock more effectively, it also allows you to hold more stock as well.

By making better use of your racking if using shelf bins, or of your warehouse floor space if using stacking pick boxes, it allows you to grow your inventory to incorporate additional products. This, in turn, increases your potential for new sales, but also cross and upselling to your existing customers too.

This does not have to be a permanent requirement either.

For example, if you move a lot of additional stock over a particular period – for example, Christmas – it is possible to get flat pack picking bins that can be used to effectively manage the peak in demand, before being stored (flat) for the rest of the year whilst not required.

These benefits can be particularly pronounced if you are using custom picking bins too.