During peak sales events, such as Black Friday and Boxing Day, many Australian ecommerce brands race to bundle products into subscription boxes or gift sets, as it’s one of the most effective ways to boost average order value. Kitting adds complexity to your daily operation since assembling it requires multiple item groups, a custom tag or wrap, and special packaging.
When your order volumes surge by 200%, minor flaws in the process snowball into delayed dispatches and lead to a stressed support team. Before the peak season commences, avoid these kitting mistakes.
Assembling Kits During Order Rush Instead of Pre-Kitting
Building kits on demand alongside daily dispatch deadlines slows down your entire fulfilment flow. Pickers must travel through aisles to collect components for a bundle, meaning transit time increases across the warehouse floor.
The solution for this mistake is to review your sales history and promotional plans to identify your best-selling kits. Work with your warehouse team or 3PL provider (if you have one already) to pre-assemble these bundles 2-3 weeks before peak season begins once your packaging and components are in hand. Pre-kitted items are stored as a single unit with their own barcode. When you receive an order, pickers retrieve one rather than assembling items on the fly.
Related: What is Kitting in Fulfilment and How Does the Process Work?
Operating Without a Clear Bill of Materials (BOM)
Missing items and inventory count errors are often a process failure. Omitting visual instructions for the worker who builds a kit makes mistakes far more likely. A forgotten sample insert can happen, especially if you hire seasonal staff to handle holiday surges, but it doesn’t mean you can’t prevent it.
Create a visual BOM for every kitted SKU in your inventory. A BOM is a complete checklist that details every item, box size, sticker, and insert for assembly. Place this visual standard card at every packing station showing step-by-step photos of item placement, protective packaging, sticker positioning and tissue paper folds. So, nothing gets left to memory.
Disorganised Workstation Layouts
In high-volume fulfilment, a delay of 15 seconds per kit may add hours to your labour bill. With a disorganised table, your assembly worker has to pause to look through the mess and find the component they’re looking for.
Setting up a structured assembly line, where one person folds boxes, one populates items, and one seals and labels, increases kitting speed. Design dedicated kitting stations arranged logically from left to right. Position the heaviest components at elbow height to reduce bending, place fast-moving items in angled pick bins within arm’s reach, and keep tape dispensers, shipping labels, and tissue paper directly overhead.
Skipping Barcode Scanning and Scan Verification
When the team has to prepare to dispatch hundreds of orders a day, it’s tempting to skip scanning individual items. However, guessing at component variations, such as medium or large apparel, leads to incorrect dispatches. Use a Warehouse Management System (WMS) that requires workers to scan the barcode of every item before it goes into a kit box. This scan verification step catches picking mistakes before the box is sealed.
Related: How to Set Measurable Kitting Quality Standards That Can Be Verified Every Cycle
Kitting is a powerful lever for growing sales during the busiest retail periods, but only if the execution holds up under pressure. By avoiding these common kitting mistakes before peak hits, you’ll keep dispatch times fast and unboxing experience consistent. Want to learn more about streamlining your warehouse operations? Explore our blog for related guides. Or, if you’re not sure whether your kitting process can handle peak volume, we’re happy to just take a look, no commitment required.