For warehouses fulfilling large B2B or wholesale orders with many line items, Single Order Shipping is the recommended workflow. It provides a guided pick → pack → ship flow for one order at a time, and when combined with pick slips, it's the fastest way to get large orders out the door.
This article walks through the recommended workflow step by step, along with settings that speed up the process. Alternative methods are covered briefly at the end for specific scenarios.
The Recommended Workflow
The fastest way to fulfill large orders is: print pick slips in bulk → pick from paper → come back to the station and ship. This lets your warehouse team pick multiple orders in parallel without being tied to a computer screen.
Step 1: Set Up Location Sorting
Before you start shipping, make sure your pick slips list items in a logical warehouse walk order. This is the single biggest factor in pick speed.
Navigate to Settings > Shipping and find the Single Order Shipping Suggested Location Method section. Set your sort attributes so items appear in the order a picker would naturally walk the warehouse. Common configurations:
- zone:asc, aisle:asc, shelf:asc — Walk zone by zone, aisle by aisle, shelf by shelf
- name:asc — Sort locations alphabetically by name
- priority:asc — Pick from highest-priority locations first
If your team is complaining that the pick slip "has no logic" or that picking is slow, this setting is almost always the fix. Without it, items appear in no particular order.
Step 2: Open Single Order Shipping
Navigate to Single Order Shipping in the left sidebar. You'll see two tabs:
- Ready To Ship — Orders waiting to be fulfilled
- In Progress — Orders you've started but haven't completed yet
Use the filters at the top to narrow down by Order Status, Client, or Warehouse if needed.
Step 3: Bulk Generate Pick Slips
Select the orders you want to fulfill from the Ready To Ship tab, then click Generate Pick Slips. This prints a pick slip for each selected order. Each pick slip lists every item in the order along with its warehouse location, sorted according to your location sort configuration.
Hand the printed pick slips to your warehouse team. Multiple pickers can work on different orders at the same time.
You can also generate a pick slip for a single order after opening it — click Print Pick Slip in the footer.
Step 4: Pick the Items
Your warehouse team takes the pick slips to the floor, gathers all items listed on each slip, and brings them back to the packing station. No computer or mobile device is needed during the actual pick — just the printed slip.
Step 5: Pack and Ship
Once a picker returns with the items for an order:
Step 5a: Select that order in Single Order Shipping (or click into it from the In Progress tab).
Step 5b: Confirm the picked items by clicking each one or scanning them with a barcode scanner. The system tracks which items have been confirmed.
Step 5c: Pack the items. Click Pack All in the footer to pack everything into one package, or add items to individual packages if you need to split across multiple boxes.
Step 5d: Select a shipping rate. If Rate Shopping is enabled, click the shipping method to compare carrier rates.
Step 5e: Click Print Label (or Print Packing Slip & Label) to generate the shipping label.
Step 5f: Click Complete to finalize the shipment.
Repeat for each order as pickers return with items.
Settings That Speed Things Up
Auto Pack
Navigate to Settings > Shipping and enable Single Order Shipping Auto Pack. This automatically packs all items once they're confirmed, saving a click on every order. Useful when orders typically ship in a single box.
Save Progress
Enable Single Order Shipping Save Progress in settings. If you need to pause mid-order (e.g., waiting on a picker to return with the last few items), your progress is saved and the order appears on the In Progress tab so you can resume later.
Pick Slip Templates
Navigate to Templates > PDF Templates to customize your pick slip layout. You can configure which fields appear, the sort order of items, and the overall format. Set your default template under Workstation settings.
Barcode Scanner
Using a barcode scanner at the packing station speeds up item verification. Scan each item as it goes into the box instead of clicking. Any USB or Bluetooth barcode scanner that emulates keyboard input (HID mode) works — popular options include the Zebra DS2208 and Inateck BCST-73.
Using Order Statuses to Prioritize
If you're handling a mix of B2B and D2C orders, use Order Statuses to separate them so your team knows what to work on.
Step 1:
Navigate to Orders > Statuses and create statuses that match your workflow. For example:
- B2B — Large wholesale orders
- Priority — Rush orders
- Standard — Regular fulfillment
Step 2:
Set up Automation Rules to automatically assign statuses. Navigate to Automation Rules, create a rule with the Order Created trigger, add conditions (e.g., order subtotal over $500, specific store, specific client), and set the Set Order Status action.
Step 3:
In Single Order Shipping, filter the Ready To Ship table by status. This way your team only sees the orders they should be working on.
Alternative Methods
Single Order Shipping is the recommended approach for large orders, but Warehance offers other methods that may be useful depending on your situation.
Multi-Item Picking Sessions
Best for: High volume of smaller orders (1–5 items each), not large individual orders.
Multi-Item Picking Sessions batch-pick items for multiple orders at once using totes. A picker walks the warehouse once and sorts items into totes (one tote per order). This is efficient when you have many small orders but is not ideal for large B2B orders — the tote-based approach works best when each order has only a few items.
If you want to use Multi-Item Picking for a single large order, you can isolate it by assigning a specific Order Status and then starting a pick session filtered to that status with a tote quantity of 1. However, Single Order Shipping with a pick slip is simpler for this use case.
Multi-Item Picking is available on both web and the mobile scanner app, making it the only picking method with mobile support.
Custom Batch Shipping
Best for: Groups of orders you want to process and label together.
Custom Batch Shipping lets you manually select orders, group them into a batch, and generate shipping labels for the entire batch at once. It includes optional confirmational picking with tote assignments. This is useful when you need to ship a known set of orders together but don't need the guided per-order flow of Single Order Shipping.
Single Item Batch Picking
Best for: Many orders that all contain the same single SKU.
If you're running a promotion or flash sale where dozens of orders contain the same product, Single Item Batch Picking lets you pick the total quantity needed in one trip, then distribute across orders. Not applicable for large multi-SKU B2B orders.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Single Order Shipping available on mobile?
Single Order Shipping is web only. The picking step can be done offline using printed pick slips — your team picks from paper on the warehouse floor and returns to a computer to pack and ship. If you specifically need a mobile picking interface, use Multi-Item Picking Sessions with a tote quantity of 1 and filter to a specific status.
The pick slip items are in random order — how do I fix this?
Configure your Location Sort Order under Settings > Shipping > Single Order Shipping Suggested Location Method. Set it to match the physical layout of your warehouse (e.g., zone:asc, aisle:asc, shelf:asc). Items on the pick slip will then appear in the order a picker would walk the floor.
How do Hold orders work?
Orders with a Hold Until date set in the future will not appear in Single Order Shipping or picking sessions until the hold date has passed. Once the hold date passes, the order becomes available for fulfillment automatically. This applies to all fulfillment methods.
Can I pick items out of order?
Yes. The pick slip shows a suggested order based on your location sort configuration, but pickers can grab items in any sequence. When you return to Single Order Shipping to pack, you can scan or click items in any order.
How do I handle multiple pickers on the same set of orders?
Bulk generate pick slips for all orders in the queue, then hand each picker a subset of the slips. Each picker works independently — they gather items for their assigned orders, bring them back, and someone at the station packs and ships each one in Single Order Shipping.
My team says picking is slow — what should I check?
- Location sort configuration — Make sure items on pick slips follow a logical warehouse path. This is the most common issue.
- Bulk pick slips — If your team is picking one order at a time from the screen instead of using printed pick slips, switch to the bulk pick slip workflow. Multiple pickers working in parallel is significantly faster.
- Auto Pack — Enable it to skip the manual packing step.
- Barcode scanner — Scanning items at the pack station is faster than clicking.