18 Proven Ways to Increase Order Accuracy

What does Accurate Order Mean?

The most critical phase in any eCommerce business is fulfillment, maintaining the quality and synchronization of fulfillment processes can be difficult. To ensure the effectiveness of your fulfillment operations, you must KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Otherwise, you risk spending more money and not obtaining your desired outcomes. The most critical element of any business is handling incoming orders, and you must keep meticulous track of them to avoid missing any. You must measure order accuracy to verify that each order is processed successfully. There is not just one operation in the supply chain. The perfect supply chain comprises many people, procedures, and systems. In retail distribution, there are many moving elements and human intervention. But, of course, reaching 100% accuracy in these conditions is not always possible; however, you should try to be close to 100%. Many direct-to-consumer brands have a 96% to 98% accuracy rate. However, if your company falls into this category, increasing your accuracy rate can help you stand out from the others. If your company's accuracy rate is less than 90%, you are falling behind in the race, and you need to improve it quickly if you want customers to rebuy your product. A reasonable order accuracy rate leads to an outstanding client experience and positive social media reviews. If you do not enhance your accuracy rate, it will be a huge disadvantage for your company because clients do not rebuy your products.

How to Calculate Order Accuracy Rate?

Use the following formula to calculate the order accuracy rate: (Total orders fulfilled accurately / Total orders fulfilled) * 100 = Order accuracy rate

For example, if you completed 800 orders from your warehouse and 50 of them had processing faults; your order accuracy rate would be as follows: (750/800)*100 = 93.75 percent order accuracy rate

Why Is It Important to Increase Order Accuracy?

Your initial impression with a new customer affects how much they will repurchase your goods and how likely they will like them. The order accuracy rate is determined by the time the customer is willing to interact with you. This metric has the same influence on eCommerce fulfillment as it does on toy stores and brick-and-mortar stores. Imagine you go to a nice restaurant to eat, and it takes time, and they finally give you the incorrect order or burn your dish! Now, would you wish to return to that place to eat? It is an example of the lack of precision and a customer's unwillingness to purchase the goods again. Therefore, it is critical to keep track of regular and old consumers and new ones. Now let us look at some of the most valuable outcomes of good order accuracy:

It Brings an Exceptional Customer Service

A positive customer experience is directly linked to order accuracy. For example, you have to bear the weight of negative criticism and may lose existing clients if you do not deliver things appropriately to the consumer. You will also be required to arrange for RTO and pay an additional fee. As a result, keeping track of order correctness will aid in analyzing your fulfillment process and improving your order management.

It Makes it Possible to Identify Process Vulnerabilities.

The order accuracy rate can be used to discover flaws in your fulfillment process. For example, let us say you see a pattern of lower-order accuracy over time. In that instance, you can immediately detect supply chain flaws by examining each process and determining where the shortage comes from.

It Improves Order Management

Rich insights are another benefit of the order accuracy rate. The order accuracy rate helps you search for new and innovative ways to improve order management and accuracy. Even if your order accuracy rate remains constant, the given data provides enough information to improve customer service.

How to Improve Order Accuracy

There are several tactics to increase order accuracy for your company. Still, they all come to reduce the frequency of errors by using sophisticated processes or using next-generation technologies to provide automation without errors. These are some proven methods for Increasing order accuracy for businesses.

Establish Order Accuracy Targets

To reach a particular objective, you must first determine your current order accuracy rate and then set a reasonable goal and time range. Ensure everyone on the team understands the aim and how they can help increase the order accuracy rate. As a result, you may direct it by taking concrete steps.

Make the Warehouse More Efficient

When it comes to picking orders, a warehouse's organization can make or break efficiency. Segmenting products using the ABC analysis, which groups items based on previous purchase data and patterns, is a simple way to manage the inventory. Group A consists of the most frequently purchased items; Group B: Products that are not as commonly purchased; Group C consists of products that are only sometimes purchased. It allows the picker to retrieve objects faster and more correctly, whether human or computer.

Make the Picking and Packing More Efficient to Increase Order Accuracy

By ensuring that you are using the correct barcodes and your picking lists are descriptive enough, you may prevent frequent errors like choosing the wrong color or size. You can also employ warehouse slotting, which stores merchandise in the most convenient area for the selectors, such as by type, size, weight, and location. It can improve picking accuracy and functionality by removing any potential for the selector to become confused.

Use Smart Automation

Errors are most likely to occur since humans are directly involved in picking. Furthermore, order pickers spend most of their time going from one location to another within the warehouse, resulting in numerous unnecessary overheads. Fortunately, powerful technology such as barcode scanners, conveyor belts, intelligent robots, and more can already automate typical warehouse activities. It can assist you in saving time and effort when it comes to picking orders.

Provide Incentives for Delivery Staff

Employee performance can be increased by 44 percent with proper incentives. Employees' interest in their jobs is piqued due to these programs, and errors are reduced. Setting an internal order accuracy goal and rewarding employees when they accomplish it is an excellent place to start incentivizing staff.

Conduct Quality Assurance Checks to Increase Order Accuracy

You can conduct a quality check during the order processing process to guarantee that the things supplied to consumers are correct and in good shape.

Use Proper Packaging

You do not want your goods to be harmed while in transportation. To do so, you must verify that proper materials are used in the product's packaging. For example, if you are shipping glassware, you need safe dunnage or the proper packaging of bubble wrap to guarantee that your buyer does not receive a damaged item.

Use the Proper Shipping Labels

A simple human error, such as using the wrong shipping label, might result in the wrong things being sent to the wrong place. Make sure you use the correct shipping label so the shipping company can deliver the shipment to your consumers on time.

Conduct Regular Audits to Increase Order Accuracy

Regularly auditing the warehouse operations is the best method to increase order accuracy in the company. It allows you to examine every step of the fulfillment supply chain and make conclusions about why your order accuracy is not improving.

Improve Inventory Control

Order management is directly influenced by inventory management. To assess incoming orders and link them with your inventory, try to keep a real-time inventory management tracking system. It allows you to manage your inventory and process incoming orders faster.

Use the Technology

You can increase order accuracy by using an automated system for order management. You can process every incoming order and send it to the appropriate stakeholder in your fulfillment supply chain because the system will be linked with your sales channel or marketplace. If the process is done manually, there is a potential you miss a certain number of orders, which leads to a lower order accuracy rate.

Use Labeling System to Increase Order Accuracy

It may seem insignificant, but using labeling in your receiving process can significantly increase order accuracy in your business. The part number, lot number, serial number, batch number, or other essential numbers can identify parts. Consider bagging and tagging your components to guarantee you are shipping the excellent part to the right individual. It will help you manage inventory throughout its lifecycle and process returns faster and easier. When bagging and labeling items into batches for individual labeling, counting by scale comes in handy.

Scan Barcodes

Using a handheld scanner to rapidly and correctly read barcode labels certifies selected the correct product. A rapid scan minimizes the time spent reading labels and improves warehouse picking accuracy and speed. Scanning a barcode on a picklist causes light-directed picking systems to highlight required goods in front of them or prompts an image of the relevant item to show on the screen.

Use Pick to Light Technology

Pick-to-light technologies come in various forms; learn more about them here. However, these systems use modules to display combinations of blinking colored lights, alphanumeric displays, and projected beams to show a picker where the next desired item is housed and its SKU number and amount to pick. Lights decrease picking errors by reducing the guesswork and search time out of picking or placing an item, frequently increasing warehouse picking accuracy rates to 99 percent or higher. The pick-to-light and barcode scanners could be used in forwarding pick zones and reserve storage, respectively. However, the options for improving order choosing accuracy are nearly limitless.

Count Scale-Based to Increase Order Accuracy

The scales are pre-programmed to determine quantity based on total part weight, making them ideal for small parts of all the same weight. Counting by scale is an efficient approach to boost picking accuracy and productivity in processes that handle hundreds of microscopic parts, such as details.

Use Image Database

Looking at a photo rather than a line item with a tremendously long part number and a difficult-to-decipher part name makes it easier to identify goods. A selector has a visual reference immediately next to them on display or in-hand on a scanner, thanks to a database of images taken of each SKU in inventory and connected to order management software. The picked item can then be compared to the image on the screen, which reduces order choosing errors.

Make Picking and Packing More Efficient

Picking and packing is the next most crucial component of your fulfillment supply chain. If these are not completed correctly, there is a risk that the order accuracy rate will be negatively impacted. As a result, use HTT (Handheld Tools) to correctly choose products and match them to orders for picking activities. Set up dedicated packing stations and compare your product packaging to SKUs to ensure that every order is bagged correctly and without errors.

Outsource to Third-party Logistics to Increase Order Accuracy

Outsourcing your fulfillment processes to 3PL providers is the best approach to boost your order accuracy rate. The 3PL suppliers have specialized resources for each fulfillment operation, allowing them to handle your orders faster and more accurately. Of course, none of the aforementioned methods and technologies to increase order accuracy work in isolation. Most are used in tandem within the same operation or storage system to improve overall picking accuracy.

Final Thoughts Order accuracy is one of the most influential metrics to monitor because it is directly tied to the customer experience. Therefore, you must ensure adequate coordination between other fulfillment procedures such as picking, packaging, and shipping to preserve optimal order accuracy. Client retention is critical for boosting profitability, giving a better customer experience, and improving order accuracy, so try our service for free to show how simple it is to boost your business.