Glossary
Putaway
Putaway is moving stock from the receiving area onto the shelf it will be picked from, and recording where it went.
It is the step everybody forgets is a step. Receiving ends when the count is agreed. Putaway ends when the goods are findable.
Why the gap matters
Between those two moments the stock is sellable on your website and invisible in your stockroom. A customer buys it, a picker cannot find it, and the order is refunded as out of stock.
That is a phantom stockout, and the cause is almost always a pallet still sitting by the door.
Keeping it short
- Put away the same day, before the boxes are stacked two deep
- Scan the bin location as you go, not afterwards
- Do the fast sellers first, whatever order the boxes came off the van
- Never leave a part-emptied pallet unlabelled overnight
Where it goes wrong
Two people put the same delivery away in two places. Half the run goes to A-03, the rest goes wherever there was room, and nobody writes down the second spot. The pick list sends a picker to A-03, they find eight of the twelve, and the shortfall gets recorded as missing stock that is actually forty feet away.
One person owns a delivery from door to shelf. The whole method for the step before this one is in how to receive a purchase order in Shopify.
Related terms
Bin location
Also called: Bin, Storage location
A bin location is the address of a place in your stockroom, so anyone can be told where to find a product without being shown.
Receiving
Also called: Goods in
Receiving is checking a delivery against what you ordered, then telling your system what actually arrived.
Pick list
A pick list is the sheet or screen that tells someone which products to collect for an order, and where each one is.