Order Processing B2C Warehouse
B2C (Business to Consumer) warehouse Order processing involves delivering products to the customers than businesses. A B2C warehouse might receive high number of orders but with smaller quantities of product in each order. Hence, a B2C warehouse functions differently than B2B warehouses. As customers ask for the product delivery within the same or soon after, B2C order fulfilment requires great deal of accuracy and speed. Also, B2C warehouses needs the latest technology and fool proof management at each level of Order processing to avoid bad customer feedback or order returns.
Since B2C warehouses take customer experience into consideration, they may also offer special packaging features, like tissue paper, gift wrapping or personalized greeting cards.
A typical B2C warehouse order processing cycle starts with when order is allocated to a B2C warehouse.
Step 1 Generate Picklist: - A pick list is used to indicate which items should be taken from warehouse to fulfill shipment orders. Generally, a pick list shows the shipment information, warehouse location and item information. Picklist can be of multiple types based up on nature of shipments: - By customer, by order, by SKU, by wave picking etc. In vin e-Retail, the picklist can be generated:
a. Order-wise
b. SKU-wise (zone/bin)
Picklists are then assigned to picker(s) who will do the picking basis the picklists.
Step 2 Picking: Picking is the step of collecting products from specified warehouse location and quantity as per instructed in picklist. Picker scan the items picked with the Mobile app or with the screen.
Picking is seen as the most labour-intensive activity in the warehouse. Hence system supports many picking strategies to improve warehouse efficiency.
Step 3 Packing: Once the Picking is done for an order, the user in the Packing section packs the order from the manage picking screen. User needs to input Transporter and delivery details to pack the order. User can also use the facility to scan the items of the order before packing. This is optional. User then Confirm packing and print the invoice.
During this stage only, the items can be gift-wrapped as per the packing instructions provided. User can also generate marketplace labels at this stage.
Step 4 Manifest: After the order is packed, warehouse team stores shipments in dispatch zone segregated by customer and transporter and when Logistics team arrives, they create manifest document per transporter. Manifest is a list of items which are shipped from the warehouse to the customer location.
Once the transporter picked the Manifest and scans the AWB no. assigned, the order moves out of the warehouse and Order Processing stands completed.