Scan-verified packing and shipping

A picker who grabs the wrong phone case color makes an honest mistake. If the packer doesn't catch it, it becomes a return, a reship, a second shipping charge and a customer who trusts you a little less. Packing is the last checkpoint with the order and the goods in the same place, so it should verify, not just box.

Packing also sets your shipping cost. The carton you choose and the weight you record decide what the carrier bills, and a box that is too big for its contents is paid for on every parcel. Finally, packing is where reserved stock becomes stock that has left the building. If that handoff is recorded loosely, on-hand numbers drift and nobody can say which parcel held which units.

Packing picks up where order picking ends. Picked stock arrives at the bench, and the packer works each order on the station computer or on a phone running the floor app.

• Open the order at the bench. The screen lists every line still to pack.
• Scan each unit into the carton. A wrong SKU, an extra unit or a missing one is flagged before the carton closes.
• Accept or change the suggested carton. NextStock proposes the smallest carton from your list that fits the items, and says when some items have no dimensions on file.
• Capture the weight from the bench scale, or type it when no scale is connected.
• Close the package and print its packing slip and shipping label.
• Products that already travel in a shippable box are packed as ship-in-own-container and skip the carton step.

Parcel carriers bill the greater of actual weight and dimensional weight. Dimensional weight is the carton's volume divided by a divisor set in your carrier contract. For example, a 40 × 30 × 20 cm carton with a divisor of 5,000 has a dimensional weight of 4.8 kg (24,000 ÷ 5,000). If the linen towels inside weigh 2.1 kg, you still pay for 4.8 kg.

That is why carton choice matters more than it looks. NextStock calculates dimensional weight from the carton's measurements next to the scale reading, so the packer can see when a smaller box would cost less. Carton suggestions only work from data you have entered, so keep product dimensions and carton inner dimensions current and the suggestions improve with them.

Not every order needs a truck. A brand shipping to consumers can ship each package on its own, without creating a load for it. A distributor delivering to retailers can build mixed pallets, add them to a load, print the manifest and dispatch the whole load in one step. The same warehouse can do both, with the order type deciding which path an order follows.

Cut-off times and urgency ordering put the orders that must leave today at the top of the queue. For B2B deliveries, loads, bills of lading and proof of delivery carry the paperwork from dock to customer. Either way, stock leaves the ledger only when the parcel or load actually ships, so on-hand reflects what is still in the building.

Orders change after they are packed. A customer corrects an address, reduces a quantity, or cancels after picking has finished. NextStock treats these as normal steps with their own records rather than manual adjustments.

• Edit an order after creation, including the address and line quantities.
• Split the remaining demand onto a new order when part of it can't ship today.
• Reopen a package to swap or add an item, then close it again.
• Reship an order when a parcel is lost or damaged in transit.
• Cancel after pick with guided restock, which walks the operator through putting picked units back.

Today NextStock prints shipping and pallet labels directly to thermal printers; see label printing for how printers connect. Buying labels from specific carriers inside NextStock, and pulling their tracking updates back, is planned and not available yet. Until those connections ship, buy carrier labels through the carrier's own system and use NextStock for scan verification, cartons, weights and the shipment record.

A few setup steps pay off before go-live. Enter your carton sizes with inner dimensions and tare weights. Measure and weigh your fastest-moving SKUs first. Decide per order type whether orders ship as parcels or on loads. The integrations page lists the current status of carrier and sales channel connectors.