Packing Slips and Pick Lists: A Daily Routine for Small Stores

Short answer: Stop packing order by order. Gather the day's unfulfilled orders into one batch, print a single pick list that groups every item across those orders, walk the shelves once, then pack each parcel against its own packing slip and mark the whole lot fulfilled so tracking emails go out together. On Shopify, batches, bulk packing slips and the free Order Printer app's pick lists cover this without custom work; on WooCommerce, a PDF packing-slip plugin does the printing side.

Why one-at-a-time packing gets slow

Handling each order end to end works at five orders a day. At thirty it means thirty trips to the same shelves and thirty chances to forget a tracking number. Split the job into stages and run each stage once for all orders: here is a morning routine, the setup each step needs, and the mistakes that cost the most time.

Step 1: The morning batch (07:30 or whenever your cut-off falls)

What you do: decide which orders are going out today and group them.

Setup on Shopify. Batches let you group up to 250 fulfilments by criteria such as product type or shipping destination, according to Shopify's batch fulfilment help page (as of November 2026). From Orders, turn on Group by batch and choose Batch recent orders, which pulls in unfulfilled orders from the last 14 days, or select specific orders and click Create batch. Batches are named by date by default; rename them if you run two dispatch rounds a day ("AM express", "PM standard").

Setup on WooCommerce. Filter the orders list by the Processing status and select today's orders. There is no built-in batch object, so your "batch" is simply that filtered selection.

Decide your cut-off and publish it. If orders placed before 9am ship the same day, say so on the shipping page and in the order confirmation. The morning batch is the moment that promise is kept or broken.

Step 2: Pick (one walk, not twenty)

What you do: collect every item for every order in the batch in a single pass.

Setup. Shopify's free Order Printer app can print pick lists for multiple orders, and Shopify's changelog describes templates for both pick-by-order and pick-by-product, with fields such as order ID, product name, variant, SKU, quantity and product image, sortable by product name, SKU or order ID. Within a batch, the default workflow starts with a Pick step that creates the pick list for you.

For most small stores, pick-by-product is the faster layout: "Linen tea towel, sage × 7" beats seven separate lines on seven slips. Use pick-by-order only when orders are large and personalised.

A shelf-order trick. Shopify has no dedicated bin-location field on the pick list, but you can sort by SKU. If your SKUs start with a shelf code (A1-, A2-, B1-…), the list comes out in walking order. Renaming SKUs is a one-off job, so do it on a quiet afternoon and update any barcodes and labels at the same time.

Pick into one tote per batch and tick each line as it goes in.

Step 3: Pack (each parcel checked against its slip)

What you do: split the picked stock into individual parcels and check every one.

Print packing slips in bulk. In Shopify, select the orders on the Orders page and click Print > Print packing slips; if you have more than one location, pick the one you're shipping from. The Shopify mobile app can do the same from a long-press on an order. Shopify's batch workflow also includes a Pack step with a Scan to verify action, useful if you have a barcode scanner. On WooCommerce, a plugin such as PDF Invoices & Packing Slips for WooCommerce lets you generate packing slips in bulk from the order list and choose A4 or Letter.

Make the slip useful to the person packing and to the customer. Shopify packing slips are rendered with Liquid, and its help page shows how to add your logo, remove product images, change the address shown and restyle with CSS from Settings > Shipping and delivery > Packing slip template. Things worth adding:

the order number in large type, so the slip is easy to match to the right label;
the customer's order note or gift message, which is easy to miss in the admin;
a short line on how to start a return or get help;
removing product images if you print on a small label printer and want fewer pages.

Keep one rule: the slip goes into the box only after every line on it has been ticked.

Step 4: Dispatch (labels, status and tracking in one go)

What you do: label the parcels, hand them over, and tell customers.

Labels come from wherever you buy postage: Shopify Shipping where your country is supported for batch label purchases (check Shopify's requirements page), or your carrier's own app or portal, many of which import orders from your store. Print labels in the same order as the slips so they pair up on the bench.

Then close the loop in the store. In Shopify, from Orders you can select the batch's orders, choose Mark as > Fulfilled and tick Send a notification to the customer so the shipping confirmation goes out; tracking numbers can be added manually afterwards if your label tool doesn't write them back. Orders handled by a third-party fulfilment service are skipped by this action. In a batch, finishing the last step and clicking Close batch archives the orders in it.

Common mistakes

Printing slips before the batch is final. A late order then ships without a slip, or a cancelled one gets packed. Batch first, print second.
Marking fulfilled before the parcel exists. Customers get a "your order is on its way" email for a box still on the shelf. Mark fulfilled at dispatch, not at packing.
Letting the template drift. One Order Printer reviewer on the App Store reports a template going missing twice. Save a copy of any custom template code in a text file whenever you change it.
Ignoring split shipments. If you ship part of an order now and part later, Shopify can print a separate packing slip per shipment. Make sure the second slip makes clear it's the remainder.

FAQ

Can I print packing slips for many Shopify orders at once?

Yes. Select the orders on the Orders page and choose Print > Print packing slips. The Order Printer app's own listing says it can print in bulk up to 50 orders without opening the app, so very large days may need more than one print run.

What's the difference between a pick list and a packing slip?

A pick list is for you: it tells you what to pull from the shelves, usually across many orders. A packing slip goes in the box and lists what that one customer should find inside.

Do I need a paid app?

Not to start. Shopify's built-in slips, batches and the free Order Printer app cover a single-location store. Paid tools earn their keep when you need barcode scanning at scale, several warehouses or automatic printing as orders arrive.

Can WooCommerce do pick lists?

The free PDF packing-slip plugin handles slips and invoices; pick lists across orders generally need a separate extension or a small custom report. Check the extension's current feature list before buying.

Once your packing bench has a rhythm, the next gain is usually automation around it, and we can look at your current dispatch steps with you to see which ones are worth wiring together.