This glossary explains the terms you will keep coming across in the Pickware Admin, in the WMS App and in the Help Center. It is aimed at everyone who is new to working with Pickware, whether in the warehouse, in support or at an agency.
Picking or order picking? Both mean the same thing: removing the products of an order from the warehouse. In the WMS App, this step is called Picking. In older articles and in some places in the app, you may still find the term Kommissionierung.
Interfaces
Term | Meaning |
Shopify Admin | The administration interface of your Shopify store. You make changes to product properties here if they should also apply in Shopify. |
Pickware Admin | The administration interface of Pickware. Here you set up Pickware and manage locations, warehouse zones, orders, goods receipts and settings. |
Pickware Account | Your customer account with Pickware at account.pickware.com. Here you manage your contract, billing and licenses. The Pickware Account has its own login and is not the Pickware Admin. |
WMS App | The app for work in the warehouse: picking, packing, stocking, stock movements and stocktake. |
Processes
Term | Meaning |
Picking | The products of one or more orders are removed from their bin locations. The WMS App starts in the Picking view. |
Order picking (Kommissionieren) | Another term for picking. You will still find it in older articles and in some places in the app. |
Packing | The picked products are assigned to the orders and packed into parcels. The documents and the shipping label are also printed at this stage. In the WMS App, you reach this view via Packing at the bottom right. |
Shipping | The entire path of an order out of the warehouse: picking, packing and shipping. In the narrower sense, shipping means creating the shipping label and marking the order as shipped. |
Goods receipt | Creating a record of delivered goods, for example from a supplier order or a return. The goods are then stocked. |
Stocking | Goods are booked into a bin location, for example after a goods receipt or after a canceled picking process. |
Stock movement | A manual adding, removing or moving of stock, for example when goods are moved from one bin location to another. |
Stocktake | Counting the actual stock and reconciling it with the stock in Pickware. |
Picking methods
Term | Meaning |
Single picking | One order is picked completely before the next one begins. Simple and low in errors, but with longer walking distances. |
Batch picking | The products of several orders are collected in one pass and only distributed to the orders during packing. |
Cluster picking | Several orders are picked at the same time, each into its own picking box. |
Single item orders picking | Many orders that each consist of only the same single product are picked in bundles. |
Picking profile | Defines which orders are picked with which method. Using multiple picking profiles, you can combine methods, for example cluster picking for B2C and single picking for B2B. |
Locations, warehouse zones and bin locations
Term | Meaning |
Location | A physical place from which you fulfill goods, for example a shipping warehouse or a branch store. Each location has its own address and its own stock and is linked to exactly one Shopify location. |
Warehouse zone | A delimited area at a location in which goods are stored in bin locations, for example main warehouse or returns warehouse. The warehouse zone used to be called Warehouse. |
Default warehouse zone | The warehouse zone of a location that stock is booked into or out of when a process does not specify a warehouse zone. It applies to additions and removals and is preselected in selection fields. |
Bin location | The specific place where a product is stored, for example a shelf compartment. |
Default bin location | The preferred bin location of a product in a warehouse zone. Each product has at most one per warehouse zone. The allocation remains even if the stock there drops to 0. |
Unknown bin location | Stock that is booked in a warehouse zone but not assigned to a bin location. It is always used last when removing stock. |
Stocking strategy | Determines which bin locations the WMS App suggests when stocking: preferably existing bin locations (for a fixed-location system) or preferably empty bin locations (for chaotic warehousing). |
Picking box | A box into which the products of an order are placed during picking. As long as a process is open, the stock in this box is reserved. |
Packing table | The workstation where picked goods are packed and made ready for shipping. |
Stock and products
Term | Meaning |
Stock management | Pickware records every addition and removal for a product. If it is deactivated for a product, the product can be picked regardless of stock. |
Reorder point | The stock quantity at which a product should be reordered. |
Documents and instructions
Term | Meaning |
Picklist | A document that lists which products are to be picked from which bin location. It makes picking possible even without the WMS App. |
Picking instruction | A note for the warehouse staff that is stored on a product or an order and appears during picking. |
Packing instruction | Like the picking instruction, but it appears during packing. |
Delivery note | Enclosed with the parcel and lists the delivered products. |
Shipping label | The carrier's label that is stuck onto the parcel. |
Pickware AI
Term | Meaning |
Pickware AI | A chat assistant in the Pickware Admin. You ask questions in natural language and receive answers, analyses and, depending on your plan, actions based on your store and warehouse data. |
Agent | Works in the background: an agent independently checks your data on a schedule or on certain events and only gets in touch when there is something to know, decide or do. |
MCP Server | Connects Pickware with external AI assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT, so that you can work with your Pickware data there. |