How Kinderparties Keeps Orders Accurate Across 6,000+ Similar-Looking Products
Kinderparties, a Swiss party-supplies retailer, has used iPacky since 2020 to manage its Shopify order fulfillment. Today, its team works with more than 6,000 products, many of them similar, and busy Mondays can bring hundreds of orders to pack. Barcode checks, bin locations, barcode alias and connected label printing help the team find the right items and keep orders accurate as the operation grows.
At a glance
- 6,000+ products: Barcode checks help prevent mix-ups between similar items.
- 400 orders to pack on a busy Monday: Weekend orders create a demanding start to the week.
- A growing packing team: Around five or six packers now share the work.
- One person can pick and check an order: Scanning removed the separate visual check by a second employee.
- Less manual label handling: Shipping labels print when order checking is complete.
- Better visibility: Reports help managers follow employee progress and investigate mistakes.
Meet Kinderparties and its growing warehouse team
Kinderparties is a Swiss retailer of children’s party supplies, founded by Vanessa Schnabel in 2016. Vanessa and her team help parents organize themed celebrations, with an assortment that includes decorations, tableware and party activities.
In its early operation, the warehouse team consisted of three people, including Vanessa. When Kinderparties introduced iPacky in 2020, the catalogue was much smaller and employees knew where everything was stored. Today, the assortment exceeds 6,000 products, with five-six different packers.
Mondays are particularly demanding because orders accumulate over the weekend. The team has faced 400 orders to pack in one day.
As the business grew, the warehouse needed a way to quickly find products, orders accurate and work consistent across different employees.
The challenge: Too much depended on manual checks and experienced employees
Before iPacky, one person collected products using a printed invoice. A second person then checked the items against it before the parcel was closed.
The small team could recognize the products and remember their locations. Even at that scale, the process required two people’s involvement in checking an order and several manual steps to prepare it for shipping.
Every order needed a second check. The employee collecting products relied on another person to verify the selection. That repeated work tied up time the team could otherwise have spent preparing orders.
Shipping involved separate manual tasks. Employees prepared address labels in Word, printed them and attached them alongside preprinted carrier barcodes. Labels added another stage requiring care and coordination.
Growth made product knowledge harder to rely on. As the catalogue and team expanded, memorizing every location became unrealistic. More similar-looking products also made visual checking less dependable.
The business needed reliable product checks and a simpler route through picking, packing and labeling.
The solution: The fulfillment tools Kinderparties needed, within Shopify
Kinderparties considered a broader warehouse or ERP system. For a small business, the cost was difficult to justify, particularly when many of its functions were unnecessary.
iPacky addressed the immediate need: packing verification for Shopify orders using barcode scanning. Kinderparties could introduce that control while keeping Shopify at the center of its operation.
That choice has continued to suit the business. Kinderparties sells through Shopify and one other marketplace, so extensive marketplace-management functions have remained unnecessary. Meanwhile, iPacky has added capabilities the team now uses, including bin locations and shipping-label printing after checking.
“iPacky come out with so many new features. I don’t even manage to keep up with what’s new all the time. ”,
Vanessa Schnabel, Managing Director at Kinderparties
Kinderparties has considered an ERP again, but its Shopify-based setup with iPacky continues to suit its needs. The business sells through Shopify and one other marketplace, while iPacky has added capabilities that make daily fulfillment easier.
What changed inside the warehouse
One employee can pick and verify an order
The first improvement removed the need for a second person to check every product by eye. With iPacky, the employee collecting the items could scan them and confirm that they matched the order.
“At the moment we got this, we only used one packer instead of two. So that was the biggest change for us at the beginning.”,
Vanessa Schnabel, Managing Director at Kinderparties
That was a change in how an order was handled. The packing team has since expanded as the business has grown.
Today, an employee scans a printed invoice’s barcode to open the customer’s order in iPacky on an iPad. The iPad sits on a wheeled table that travels with them through the warehouse. Products are scanned as they are collected, then taken back to the packing area.
The arrangement suits Kinderparties’ theme-based storage. Items for a Paw Patrol party sit together, while Ninjago supplies occupy another area. An order often contains several products from one theme, so checking them during collection avoids a separate picking-to-checking handoff.
Employees can find products without memorizing the warehouse
In the early operation, employees knew a product’s shelf and level from memory. A catalogue of more than 6,000 products and a larger packing team needed a shared reference.
Kinderparties uses iPacky to support its warehouse bin system, showing employees where products are stored. Employees can use the location to find an item and its barcode to confirm their selection.
This makes the workflow less dependent on long-serving employees’ knowledge. It also gives newer colleagues a way to quickly locate products while they learn the assortment.
Shipping labels no longer need to be sorted from a batch
Kinderparties initially used shipping software to print labels in bulk. Twenty orders meant twenty labels on the table, each needing to reach the correct parcel. The team used iPacky to check the match by scanning the labels.
Introducing label printing after order checking simplified that process.
Now, when an employee finishes checking an order, its label prints at the packing area. They return with the checked products and have the corresponding label ready for the parcel.
“The most important step for us was when we could print out the shipping labels after the packing. That made the packing so much easier.”,
Vanessa Schnabel, Managing Director at Kinderparties
The change removed the need to choose the right label from a batch and connected checking directly with the next packing step.
Managers can review progress and investigate mistakes
Kinderparties uses packing reports to see how new employees progress. Experienced colleagues provide a reference for packing speed, helping managers assess whether newcomers improve as they learn the products and locations.
“If someone is starting, I know they will probably be slower because it’s new to them and they have to find the articles, which takes time. But this person needs to improve their packing speed. That’s why I regularly use the packing reports.”,
Vanessa Schnabel, Managing Director at Kinderparties
Order records also show who checked an order and whether products were scanned or confirmed manually. When a customer reports an incorrect or missing item, managers can review how the order was handled and identify a specific process issue to discuss.
The results: More control across a larger assortment
Kinderparties now has a fulfillment process that supports its larger catalogue and packing team:
- Fewer fulfillment errors with barcode checks for similar-looking products.
- One person handling picking and checking, removing the separate visual-checking handoff.
- Clearer product locations, reducing dependence on warehouse knowledge held by individual employees.
- Simpler label handling, with shipping labels printed after checking.
- Better management visibility, supporting employee progress reviews and complaint investigations.
Supporting the next stage of the operation
Kinderparties continues to rely on iPacky to help its growing team find, check and ship the right products across an assortment of more than 6,000 items.
“If you’re working with Shopify and you’re searching for a system, I can totally recommend it 100%.”,
Vanessa Schnabel, Managing Director at Kinderparties
For merchants managing a growing assortment, Kinderparties shows how product locations, barcode checks and connected shipping steps create a consistent process employees can follow.
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