According to a study by eMarketer, e-commerce retail was on track to cover 22% of all purchases by 2023 before the global COVID-19 pandemic. With free online shipping and same-day deliveries, Amazon and other retail giants have also contributed to the consumer shift. COVID-19 is expected to further accelerate this development and bring about a lasting change in purchasing behavior. Customers who usually do their shopping in stores are now increasingly testing online retail.

Although the coronavirus crisis has led to significantly more online orders for months and a state of emergency in some sectors, a further increase is likely to follow in the fourth quarter. Before the Christmas business kicks off, it is first necessary to logistically handle the so-called "Cyber Days" and "Black Friday" sales.

Recent events have increased the pressure on companies to pursue an optimal e-commerce or omnichannel distribution strategy. Many companies are forced into complicated ad hoc processes that require constant supervision and quickly reach their limits. The availability of manpower depends on the simplicity of the work and the number of processes that the operators have to perform. Added to this are financial constraints and low profit margins: Customers expect to pay less or the same price for online orders as in local stores.

To remain competitive, companies need scalable e-commerce fulfillment solutions that allow them to react flexibly to peak times and handle these peaks efficiently. SSI Schaefer has specialized in these demanding requirements. For decades, the intralogistics specialist has been developing high-performance systems and intelligent software solutions that perfectly meet the individual requirements profile of companies as part of an e-commerce or omnichannel strategy.

Suitable for a large volume of e-commerce orders - Pick-n-Sort picking method

Pick-n-Sort is a strategy in which several orders are split between several pickers or processes. The orders are picked separately and then consolidated. The basic prerequisite for Pick-n-Sort is that the efficiency gained during picking compensates for the additional step of sorting and/or consolidation. The efficiency gain is particularly noticeable with a larger number of SKUs and greater distance between the required items.

Wave pick is a frequently used variant of the pick-n-sort strategy. Several orders are distributed to several pickers or processes. Each one processes a part of the entire order pool. A decisive criterion for Wave Pick is the dependency of the parts of an order that are processed by different pickers and/or processes. Wave Pick can be used with both the person-to-goods principle and the goods-to-person principle. In a person-to-goods wave pick, the picker receives a series of orders and walks through the warehouse to pick all the items for those orders. Several other pickers carry out the same activity at the same time. In a wave pick, which is carried out on a goods-to-person basis, all orders have the same priority. The systems work as efficiently as possible to provide the items that need to be picked within a picking wave.

A larger volume leads to higher picking efficiency with Wave Pick (more volume in the same picking area). The size of the orders has little influence on the picking process. If a picking wave consists of 20,000 items, it makes little difference whether these are needed for 500 or 5,000 orders, provided the picking process is not restricted by the sorting process.