If you warehouse and ship your own products by hand, you should ask yourself is there an easier way to do this?
We recently purchased an inventory system from Barcoders.com, which has improved both the accuracy and the speed of our shipping department. I love that the software won't let a picker put something in a box if it's the wrong thing! My pickers are REALLY GOOD, with less than a 1% error rate by hand, but this system makes sure we're sending the right dog collar to the right pup.
If you've never looked into the cost of these things, you may be surprised at how affordable a full-blown wireless warehouse management system can be. I figure shipping mistakes cost us AT LEAST $50 in real costs each and who knows what the customer impact will be? Ours paid for itself in less than 6 months, and it also gives you an accountability system to know who is working and who is performing at an, uh, "subobtimal" level and needs a little help.
Anyway, now Barcoders is working on an even easier way for Yahoo! Store folks to get started with barcoding. I wish I had this 15 years ago when we got started!
Just hook a USB scanner up to a computer and it's an instant order verifier using your browser. After you pick each order, just run it through the order verifier to make sure the it's correct:
This has got to be the simplest way to eliminate shipping mistakes. These guys are looking for some Yahoo store beta testers for this new product. I told them I'd put the word out and see if I could help them find anyone who wanted to beta test it. If you're interested, contact them at [email protected] or 480-239-1585.
-- ROB SNELL
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