How Pick and Pack Works in Ecommerce Fulfillment

Order picking can account for anywhere from 35% to 75% of a warehouse’s total operating costs, according to Review of Managerial Science, February 2025. That makes picking one of the biggest spending lines in any warehouse, and pick and pack the first place your customers feel it when something goes wrong: the wrong size, a missing insert, a box that arrives crushed.

This guide shows how pick and pack works from the moment an order lands to the moment it leaves the building. It covers the picking methods behind the process, where errors creep in, what a good pick and pack service includes, and the questions worth asking before you hand over your inventory.

New to the wider operation? How fulfillment works maps the full journey from receiving to returns. This article zooms in on the middle of that journey, where stored inventory becomes a finished order.

What Is Pick and Pack in Ecommerce Fulfillment?

Pick and pack is the stage of order fulfillment where warehouse staff locate the items in a customer’s order, verify them and pack them for shipment. It begins when an order is released to the warehouse and ends when a labelled parcel is ready for the carrier.

At Ecom, pick and pack sits in the middle of a seven-step order-to-door workflow: inbound, storage, orders, pick and pack, dispatch, delivery and returns. The steps on either side shape how well it runs. Stock that was received late or put away in the wrong location cannot be picked quickly, and a carrier can only deliver what was packed correctly. This is why fulfillment pick and pack quality is rarely a stand-alone problem. It reflects the whole chain.

Ecom’s ecommerce fulfillment services connect these steps in one workflow, with real-time visibility across inventory, orders and delivery.

How the Pick and Pack Process Works, Step by Step

Pick and pack in a warehouse follows the same five stages in most operations, whether the building handles fifty orders a day or fifty thousand. Ecommerce pick and pack adds one demand on top: each order is small, so every stage has to repeat accurately, thousands of times.

Step	What Happens	What It Protects Against
1. Order release	The order arrives from your store or marketplace, stock is confirmed and the order is released for picking	Overselling, orders sitting unseen
2. Picking	A picker collects the items from their storage locations	Wrong item, wrong quantity
3. Scan check	Items are scanned and matched against the order	Mis-picks reaching the box
4. Packing	Items go into the right box with protection, inserts and kit components	Damage, missing inserts
5. Labelling and dispatch	The shipping label is applied and the parcel is staged for the carrier	Wrong label, missed cutoff

Step 1: Order Release

When a customer checks out, the order travels from your store or marketplace into the warehouse system through an integration. The system confirms the stock is available and releases the order for picking.

Timing matters here. Orders placed before the daily cutoff are eligible for same-day dispatch, which means the warehouse has to begin picking almost immediately after the order lands. The faster an order moves from received to picked, the more consistently that dispatch window holds.

Step 2: Picking

A picker is directed to the storage locations and collects each item. Of the five stages, this one carries the biggest cost. In Bartholdi and Hackman’s breakdown of picking time, roughly 55% goes to travelling between locations, 15% to searching for items, 10% to extracting them and 20% to paperwork and other tasks.

The takeaway is that walking is the real cost of picking. Storage layout, the picking method (covered in the next section) and accurate inventory data all decide how much walking a picker does. If the system shows four units in a bin and the shelf holds three, the order stalls while someone investigates.

Step 3: Scan Check

Before anything goes into a box, the items are scanned and matched against the order. A scan check catches what the human eye misses: two near-identical products in neighbouring bins, a colour variant swapped for another, a quantity of two where the order asked for three.

At Ecom, scan checks and packing quality control help catch errors before dispatch, which builds verification into the process.

Step 4: Packing

Packing involves more than putting items in a box. The packer chooses a box that fits the order without excess empty space, adds protection where the product needs it, and includes any inserts, kit components or branded packaging. At Ecom, packaging, kits and inserts follow the requirements agreed for your products.

Box size affects both cost and safety. Carriers calculate shipping charges on dimensional weight, which is the space a parcel occupies, so a box with unnecessary room inflates the billed weight beyond what the product actually weighs. It also lets items shift in transit, which raises the risk of damage.

Step 5: Labelling and Dispatch

The shipping label is applied, the parcel is scanned out and it is staged for collection. This is the point where pick and pack shipping hands the parcel to the carrier. Ecom can route orders across Ecom Delivery, its own last-mile network in major Canadian markets, or through national carrier partners, so the choice of service can follow the speed and cost each order needs.

Common Picking Methods and When Each Fits

The method used to organise the warehouse pick and pack process has a large effect on speed and accuracy. Four approaches are common in pick and pack logistics, and many operations combine them.

Method	How It Works	Best Suited To	Trade-Off
Discrete (single-order)	One picker collects one order from start to finish	Low volumes, large or high-value items	Most travel per order, so it slows as volume grows
Batch	A picker collects items for several orders in one trip; items are placed into a bin rack and scanned to each order, so no manual sorting step is needed	High volumes of small orders that share SKUs	Requires accurate scan checks at the bin rack; errors at this stage affect multiple orders at once
Zone	The warehouse is divided into zones and each picker works one zone, with orders passing through or being combined	Large facilities and wide catalogues	Orders must be consolidated, so coordination matters
Wave	Orders are released in scheduled groups, often timed to carrier cutoffs	Operations with fixed carrier collection times	Orders arriving after a wave wait for the next one

No method wins in every case. A brand selling a handful of SKUs in mostly single-item orders tends to suit batch picking, because one trip can serve many orders. A brand with thousands of SKUs spread across a large building tends to suit zone picking, because it limits how far any one picker travels. A useful question for any provider is how they match the method to your order profile.

Where Pick and Pack Goes Wrong

Pick and pack errors are small events with an outsized cost. Each wrong or damaged order means a reshipment, a customer service conversation and a customer who now doubts your brand. The failure points are consistent across operations:

• Mis-picks. Similar products sit side by side, and the wrong one ends up in the box.

• Wrong quantities. A multi-unit order goes out one unit short.

• Inventory mismatches. The system shows stock that the shelf does not hold, so orders stall or ship incomplete.

• Packing damage. The box is too large, or the protection is too thin for the product.

• Missing inserts or kit components. The product arrives, but the card, sample or accessory does not.

• Label errors. A wrong or unreadable label delays the parcel before it reaches your customer’s door.

Most of these are problems of process rather than effort, which is the argument made in Ecommerce Fulfillment Mistakes, along with a recommendation to build scan verification into the workflow. Real-time inventory tracking helps with the mismatch problem. Ecom’s inventory management includes multi-location visibility and automated stock synchronization, so the count a picker sees is the count on the shelf.

“Pick and pack errors are cheapest to fix at the pack bench. A scan check there turns a wrong item into a quick correction. Once the box is sealed, the same mistake becomes a reshipment, a support ticket and a customer who has started to doubt the brand,” says Omar Laz, Senior Director of Fulfillment at Ecom.

Order accuracy is the number that sums all this up. It measures the share of orders that leave the warehouse with the right items, in the right quantities and in the right packaging. Any provider you consider should be able to tell you how they measure it.

What Pick and Pack Services Should Include

The phrase pick and pack services can mean anything from basic picking and boxing to a full pick, pack and fulfillment operation that handles everything around it. The surrounding steps decide how good the picking and packing turns out, so a complete service covers:

• Receiving and storage: Inventory is checked in, labelled and shelved in defined locations so it can be found and picked accurately when an order comes in.

• Inventory visibility: Real-time tracking across locations shows what is available before an order is promised.

• Kitting, bundling and custom packaging: Multi-item kits, inserts and branded packaging are prepared to your specification.

• Returns handling: Returned items are inspected, restocked and reflected in inventory so sellable stock goes back on the shelf.

• Marketplace preparation: Ecom also offers Amazon FBA prep for brands selling through Amazon.

• A connection to delivery: The parcel leaves the building with a route, a carrier and tracking attached.

The service also looks different depending on who the order is for. Pick and pack fulfillment services for a direct-to-consumer brand and for a retail supplier share the same skeleton but differ in the details.

	D2C Fulfillment	B2B Retail Fulfillment
Typical order	Many small orders, often one to a few units, sent to individual customers	Fewer, larger orders sent to retailers in bulk
Packing focus	Protective packaging, inserts and a branded unboxing experience	Retailer-specific labelling, carton requirements and bulk shipping
Compliance	Accurate items and good condition on arrival	Retailer compliance rules, where errors can trigger chargebacks
How Ecom supports it	Fast, accurate order processing across ecommerce platforms with full visibility and control	EDI-driven workflows, retailer compliance and bulk shipping built to reduce chargebacks and delays

Brands that sell through both channels can also look at B2B and retail fulfillment and omnichannel fulfillment, which manages inventory and orders across channels from one place.

What Drives Pick and Pack Costs, and When to Outsource

Pick and pack costs rarely come down to a single rate. The bill reflects the work each order creates, so two brands on the same rate can end up with very different totals. Five factors shape the number:

• Items per order. Every extra line means another pick, another scan and another item to pack.

• SKU count and product size. A wide catalogue spreads stock across more locations, and bulky products need more space and larger boxes.

• Packaging and kitting. Custom boxes, inserts and multi-item kits add handling steps to every order.

• Returns. Each returned item has to be inspected, restocked and reflected in inventory.

• Errors. A mis-pick is paid for twice, once in the original pick and again in the reshipment.

Ecommerce Fulfillment Costs goes deeper on how picking, packing and labour costs add up, and where hidden costs creep in.

Those same factors show when outsourcing to a pick and pack service starts to make sense. Brands tend to reach that point when order volume outgrows their space or their team, when errors and missed cutoffs start to rise, when they plan to sell into a new market, or when seasonal peaks strain the people they have. A 3PL takes on the space, systems and staff for that work, and many 3PLs price by activity, so costs follow order volume more closely than a lease and a payroll do.

When comparing providers, ask how pick and pack is priced, which charges sit outside the rate card, and how the price changes with items per order, kitting and returns. Choosing the Right Ecommerce Fulfillment Partner in Canada has a fuller list of questions to put to any provider.

Getting Pick and Pack Right with Ecom

Pick and pack rewards attention to small details: the right location, a verified scan, the right box and the right label. Together they produce the accuracy your customers judge your brand on.

Ecom runs pick and pack inside one connected order-to-door workflow, from receiving and storage through dispatch, delivery and returns, in Canada and the United States. Scan checks and packing quality control catch errors before dispatch, kitting and custom packaging follow your specifications, and real-time visibility shows where your inventory and orders stand. Orders can be routed across Ecom Delivery and carrier partners, depending on the speed and cost each one needs.

Tell us what you ship, how many orders you handle and where your customers are, and we will talk through how pick and pack could work for your brand.

Contact Ecom

Frequently Asked Questions