5 Top Ecommerce WMS Management Tips for Success

Taking on ecommerce clients is an exciting opportunity, but it can come with its fair share of challenges — higher order volumes, more SKUs, and tighter fulfillment deadlines to name a few. Find out how to start offering ecommerce services from your 3PL warehouse with ease and accuracy!  

As a 3PL warehouse manager, you’re efficiently managing these demands while continuing to grow your business each day — but we know juggling it all can be tricky without the right tools. Finding the right Warehouse Management Software (WMS) software for ecommerce will let you streamline 3PL ecommerce management with greater accuracy and higher daily order fulfillment so you can take on new clients with confidence!

Let’s dive in to see how you can start offering ecommerce fulfilment without the hassle — and fast!

Why offer ecommerce warehouse services? 

• Expanding into the ecommerce space unlocks new revenue streams. 
• It positions your business for long-term growth in a sector that’s here to stay. 
• Opens your warehouse to a massive market (with over 124 million people shopping online this past Black Friday).
• Gives you the tools to fulfill high-volume orders with speed and accuracy.

An ecommerce WMS equips you with tools you need for a streamlined picking process – from being able to pick multiple orders at once to tracking your SKUs, so you can handle large order volumes and satisfy any customer requirement with ease.

What should you look for in a WMS software for ecommerce?

To effectively manage ecommerce operations, your WMS software should:

• Automate workflows for fast and accurate fulfillment.
• Seamlessly integrate with online ordering platforms like Shopify.
• Provide full, real-time transparency for your clients (like business intelligence reporting).

When you have found a WMS software for ecommerce that combines these capabilities, you’re ready to streamline operations, meet customer demands efficiently, and maintain complete visibility throughout the process.

Best WMS features for ecommerce

Join us as we explore the key CartonCloud WMS ecommerce features designed to enhance your workflows for greater efficiency, accuracy, and speed, including:

• Pick to Tote
• Wave Picking
• SKU Management
• Serial Tracking

The cornerstone of any WMS software for ecommerce lies in its seamless integration with online ordering platforms, making it easier to onboard clients and cater to any type of customer.

Before you onboard and take on new clients, you need to make sure your workflows are optimized to handle their orders efficiently with a streamlined picking process.

“When we onboard a client, the first part of that is to ensure we have CartonCloud set up, to ensure their integration is spot on.” - Deanne Luke, Founder, Lexington Logistics

5 Ecommerce Management Tips For Success

Ecom tip #1 Accelerate your picking process 

Dealing with a rush of online orders starts with cutting down on all those trips back and forth in the warehouse — because let’s face it, that time can add up fast! Reducing wasted time is essential, and tools like CartonCloud’s Pick to Tote can help streamline the process.

How does Pick to Tote work? This feature, designed specifically for ecommerce orders, uses a smart trolley system with dedicated totes. As you move through the warehouse, you can grab multiple orders all in one go, and drop off each order into its own tote — ensuring no cross-order mixing, better accuracy and more time saved for you, even during the busiest of periods! 

Check out Pick to Tote in action with Vincent below!

Pick to Tote is still in Beta – if you’re a CartonCloud customer, you can request access here.

Ecom tip #2 Pick multiple orders by item or customer with Wave Pick

When those peak periods hit — like after your client’s massive Cyber Sale event — you need a way to manage the surge of orders efficiently. That’s where CartonCloud’s Wave Picking feature comes in. Instead of processing each order individually, you can pick up to 100 different orders at once, streamlining your 3PL ecommerce management even further.

Pro tip: With CartonCloud’s mobile app, your pickers can use mobile barcode scanning for Wave Pick workflows, to boost fulfillment rates with even more accuracy. 

Ecom tip #3 Manage a growing number of SKUs with ease 

Bringing on new ecommerce clients means adding more SKUs to your warehouse shelves! To effectively take on the needs of your ecommerce clients, you need to be able to efficiently manage an ever-expanding SKU inventory with your WMS software for ecommerce.

For TNS Logistics, they realized they needed a robust WMS software for ecommerce, so they could take on their very first ecommerce client.

“Our first ecommerce customer brought our first real headache, with over 600 SKUs. We thought, how are we going to manage that on an excel spreadsheet?" - Matthew Norton, Commercial Manager, TNS Logistics

CartonCloud’s ecommerce WMS not only transformed their operations with real-time visibility of orders and consignments, automated charge capture, and seamless transparency but also revolutionized their SKU management.

By using the mobile app to scan picked items and track orders on the go, their team efficiently manages their growing SKU inventory, ensuring every item is accounted for and their customers can receive live updates with full transparency.

Pack by SKU is a CartonCloud ecommerce software workflow designed to simplify your SKU management. Ideal for single-item orders, you can pack orders by product unit of measure barcode, making your packing process much more efficient. 

How does Pack by SKU work?

1. Create a Split Pick and Pack Wave Pick for all of your single-item orders.
2. Pick all of your orders (in one trip!)
3. Bring your orders back to the packing station and then select an item, scan it and pack it. It’s that simple!

As your SKU inventory grows, maintaining accuracy and traceability becomes crucial. Tracking your SKUs with serials can ensure each item of your stock is accounted for.

Ecom tip #4 Keep track of every SKU with serials

Tracking serials is essential for your 3PL warehouse to provide accurate, traceable, and reliable order fulfillment, giving your ecommerce clients the confidence and transparency they need. 

Serials link your stock to specific sale or purchase order, offering enhanced control over your inventory. For example, if your warehouse handles perishable goods, serial numbers can help you find products that need to be picked first. 

Core Logistic Services uses FEFO (First Expiring, First Out) to manage their ecommerce orders for the supplement industry, which ensures they are always replenishing their inventory.

“CartonCloud is able to direct us when we are picking for orders to pick the right item. So if we have expiring products, it guides us to pick the first expiring product, so that we are always replenishing the products that we have.”   

“When you order a product online from one of our customers, that order gets sent directly to us in real-time. Our staff can receive that, pick your order right away and we ship it off same day.” - Cassandra Strunk, Founder of Core Logistics Services.

With CartonCloud’s ecommerce WMS software, you can set specific points in the process where serial number verification is required for picking. If an incorrect serial number is scanned, then an instant error message will alert your picker, allowing them to quickly correct the mistake and select the right item, boosting your picking accuracy.

An additional perk of tracking serial numbers is the ability to track every step of an item’s journey — purchase, pick, dispatch, and delivery — ensuring full transparency for you and your customers.

Plus, when it comes to managing returns (as this can often happen when dealing with online orders), using serialized products makes it much easier, as each item can be tracked back to its original order, complete with customer, delivery, and purchase details all in your WMS ecommerce system. 

You can learn more about using serial numbers in your warehouse operations here!

Ecom tip #5 Easily bring your ecommerce clients onboard with integrations

Once your workflows are in place for fast and easy fulfillment, the next step is getting your ecommerce clients onboard your CartonCloud WMS ecommerce system.

CartonCloud’s self-managed Shopify integration makes 3PL ecommerce management simple. Your clients can sync all their Shopify store data directly into CartonCloud, allowing you to start fulfilling orders right away. This integration also provides real-time updates to their Shopify store when orders are dispatched, ensuring everything stays transparent and easy to manage.

Not only can your ecommerce software provide your customers with more visibility, but they also have access to CartonCloud’s client dashboard, where they can view up-to-date reports 24/7.

This empowers 3PL’s like TNS to deliver top-notch customer service, by giving their customers the ability to access inventory records, track orders, manage stock, and more — from anywhere in the world!

Want to know more?

Get started with ecommerce clients today with confidence! Our friendly team is ready to guide you through our ecommerce workflows in a free demo, giving you a firsthand look at CartonCloud’s software in action.