Temporary picking bins – 12 ways they help with seasonal demand

If you are facing the challenges of increased inventory and order picking over the festive period, temporary picking bins can help with seasonal demand.

Temporary picking bins are used to help ecommerce and fulfilment businesses accommodate more stock during key sales periods. They can also improve picking processes by segmenting fast-moving or promotional lines. Typically manufactured using Correx or cardboard, temporary bins are freestanding and collapsible for easy storage when not in use. You can place temporary bins in or near packing bays, aisle ends, or other areas with available floor space.

Even knowing this, a successful holiday period can still cause headaches. How exactly do you handle the extra stock? How can you integrate temporary staff? Ultimately, how do you cope with increased demand?

Well, much like the 12 days of Christmas, there are 12 ways that temporary picking bins can significantly impact your success. And – bad jokes aside – this guide covers precisely why you should consider them for your business.

It covers:

• How you can maximise space.
• Several ways that you can improve picking efficiency.
• The flexibility that businesses of all sizes can achieve.
• And much more.

Even amid ongoing economic uncertainty and the cost-of-living crisis, many ecommerce, high-street, and omnichannel businesses eagerly await the (hoped-for) surge in sales.

However, virtually all businesses see their operations affected by the change in consumer behaviour during Christmas.

Whilst a few may experience a drop in sales (as consumers spend money elsewhere), the vast majority hope to see increased sales, turnover, and promotional activity. This reliance on seasonal sales is the case even for large, well-established businesses – John Lewis, for instance, reportedly generates 80% of its annual profits during Christmas.

But this poses challenges. Forecasting stock requirements is challenging for retailers operating in specific markets, particularly where customers purchase products on long lead times. Others become overwhelmed with the sheer volume of additional items passing through their warehouses.

But how is this extra stock handled? One method that is becoming more popular is using temporary picking bins.

Most ecommerce fulfilment centres, retailers’ warehouses or even small-scale online sellers likely use picking bins in some format (typically stacking pick bins, shelf bins, or pick face walls).

However, businesses source these to cope with typical storage and stock-holding requirements. As such, during increased demand (which for many markets could also include times outside of the Black Friday to Christmas period), they are inadequate for the amount of stock that is processed.

This is where temporary picking bins come in.

Usually manufactured from cardboard or Correx® (corrugated plastic), these bins can help you handle additional inventory.

But that is not all, however. This guide provides twelve ways businesses like yours can benefit from using them.

So, without further ado, here are the 12 main ways that temporary picking bins can help with the increased demand you may face during critical seasonal trading dates:

• Increase available warehouse and storage space.
• Allow for much greater flexibility of space (and its use).
• Minimise travel distances and fatigue for pickers.
• Improve the organisation of stock through segmenting SKUs.
• The improved organisation allows for a better hit density.
• Enables easier training of (temporary) staff.
• Can allow for improved stock visibility (for security and monitoring).
• Can help protect your seasonal stock.
• Allows your business to be more reactive to demand changes.
• Can assist with seasonal promotions.
• It provides options to consider different picking methods and tactics.
• Budget options to suit businesses of all sizes.

Although it sounds obvious, the main benefit of temporary picking bins is that they provide extra storage capacity for your products.

With an increased inventory at Christmas to meet heightened demand or even seasonal lines that you sell only at specific points in the year, it is essential to have the additional space to house them.

Not only is having extra capacity necessary, but it is also how you use this space. The nature of picking bins allows stock to be easily segmented and organised, which has many benefits (see later points for more detail).

So, in essence, temporary picking bins provide the additional storage space for an increased inventory of products in the run-up to Christmas.

This point actually covers two considerations in one, but both are equally important.

Firstly, temporary picking bins provide flexibility regarding where additional storage is needed. Being modular and easy to assemble and reposition, you can locate temporary picking bins precisely where you need them. They essentially create additional bin locations in your warehouse.

For example, you could place them at the ends of aisles, within empty sections of racking, directly by your packing bays and so on. This flexibility also helps maintain the sensible overall organisation of your stock (i.e. keeping similar lines near each other).

Secondly, as you can collapse and fold the temporary picking bins flat, they can be easily stored away when not required (e.g., during quieter months). This flexibility means you can use the space for other activities during these times and reuse the temporary bins when needed.

When storage space is at a premium, it is often impossible not to cut corners. However, one of the main problems this can cause is not correctly segmenting differing SKUs.

Poorly organised stock can lead to slower fulfilment times (items are harder to find), increased incidences of the wrong products being picked (as similar-looking items are all stored together) and more difficulties with checking stock levels.

Temporary picking bins provide the additional space required to house your seasonal stock and individual locations (you can choose to subdivide the containers, similar to divided pick bins) to organise them properly.

Although specifically speaking regarding the challenges posed by Black Friday, Emile Naus, partner at consultancy firm BearingPoint and formerly head of logistics strategy at Marks & Spencer, summarised this when saying:

You need more people in warehouses (during seasonal trading), but for a very short time. You either bring them in early and train them and they’re standing around doing nothing, or you bring them in late and they don’t know what they’re doing, they make mistakes and that has an impact on consumers.

But temporary picking bins can help here.

It means your business can bring temporary staff in later to coincide with the setup of the temporary picking bins. They only need to be trained on this warehouse section, not the broader, more permanent locations or zones.

Temporary staff can be tasked with purely promotional items and seasonal products, allowing full-time staff to continue their regular roles.

All this can help with the increased demand and several issues around recruiting temporary staff.

Staying with the theme of temporary staff, many businesses worry about how trustworthy some may be.

And whilst the overwhelming majority are honest and hardworking, it is, unfortunately, the case that you may observe some levels of theft.

Temporary picking bins can help reduce incidents such as this (whether by permanent or temporary staff) as it allows for much easier visual stock checks on an ongoing basis. Stock visibility can also be a deterrent for any dishonest team members, helping minimise or eradicate theft.

Of course, the other benefit is that any discrepancies in stock levels – regardless of their cause – can quickly be reported (e.g., to those responsible for ecommerce stores, promotional campaigns, etc.).

Many eCommerce operations take large deliveries of seasonal products and attempt to fulfil them from the boxes in which suppliers deliver them.

This practice saves time in the short term, as there is no organisation of stock or the task of putting stock away in specific bins or locations. However, it almost certainly makes fulfilment times slower.

However, another factor is that boxes of stock left on the floor or stacked on each other are considerably more likely to become damaged. Boxes stored in this manner could be crushed, knocked, trodden on, knocked over, or even affected by dampness. The consequence is that the stock inside also becomes damaged and potentially unsellable.

Temporary picking bins such as those manufactured from Correx® help minimise these issues. Correx® stacking pick bins, for example, elevate items off the floor and protect them from moisture and dust.

Whilst a very similar benefit to a number of those above, this point identifies that seasonal or promotional stock can be segmented using temporary pick bins.

For example, you can store items on a “BOGOF” deal (buy one, get one free) in specific pick bins. Many retailers offer shoppers “advent calendar” promotions, with different deals daily. For this scenario, you can segment the stock into separate containers on a per-day basis. The free gifts with certain purchases could again have their own location.

The options here are only limited by the imagination of your promotions – with temporary picking bins allowing them to run much more smoothly and helping you get items to customers promptly.

If your business is already experienced in ecommerce fulfilment and coping with seasonal demand, you may already be using temporary picking bins. You may also be involved with testing and implementing several more advanced tactics to improve order picking and packing.

Temporary picking bins allow you to experiment with different pick methods (e.g., wave picking, pick-to-box, etc.) without affecting your core fulfilment setup.

This flexibility enables you to fine-tune your operations for future busy periods or even mix different tactics depending on the products, staff availability, or other factors.

Besides helping to cope with seasonal demand seen at Christmas or special events such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday, temporary picking bins also allow you to be reactive to any changes in demand you may see throughout the year.

For example, companies selling sporting goods may see a surge in interest during televised tournaments such as the Olympics or World Cup. If an influencer mentions your products, you may see a short-lived but extreme rise in sales as their followers discover your brand.

Viral marketing, tie-ins with other brands or retailers, and even weather and news events can lead to peaks and troughs in demand.

But with temporary picking bins ready to go (either assembled or stored flat), you are well placed to meet any unexpected activity.

While not a way to cope with increased demand as such (but still important to note), temporary picking bins are available in various options to suit any business or budget.

Manufactured as low-cost corrugated cardboard picking bins or using the durable, extra strong and water-resistant Correx®, you can find the perfect balance between upfront cost and reusability. However, it is essential to remember that although more expensive initially, Correx® lasts longer than cardboard and has a lower overall or “lifetime” cost.

Besides this, you can specify your temporary picking bins in standard sizes or completely bespoke dimensions that are a perfect fit for your products, available space, or other considerations.

You can choose colours, opening types (fully and partially open faces, straight or chute fronts), material thicknesses, internal divisions, and even print and branding.