Lister Start to Finish Workflow Guide: Part 1

Overview

In this article, we outline how to implement barcoding in your organization, taking advantage of all the features of Upright Lister and the companion Upright Link app.

Barcodes and barcode scanning are used in multiple steps in Lister and Link to boost productivity and reduce errors. From manifesting at stores and sending products to e-commerce to be processed, photographed, listed, inventoried, and shipped, barcoding is central to optimizing your workflow.

Each section gives a brief overview of each workflow step along with the associated tool in Lister and Link in the following format:

Following these processes will increase efficiency in product throughput, provide greater feedback to stores, and generate stronger metrics for your stakeholders.

Need inspiration? Check out our case studies to see how these features have helped increase revenue for our clients!

Table of Contents

Part 1:

Manifesting

Transporting Manifests From Stores to E-Commerce

Part 2:

Processing Manifests

Product Photography

Listing Products Online

Storing Products in Inventory

Part 3:

Picking Orders

Packing Orders

Shipping Orders

Purging Unsold Products

Barcoding and Productivity Reports

Manifesting

Ideally, stores create manifests at their location before transferring products to your e-commerce processing center.

A Manifest is a digital record of items from each of your suppliers/stores that are sent to e-commerce to sell online. Each manifest represents one container of goods and is the starting point for the Lister product lifecycle. Most importantly, manifesting provides accountability, tracking, and store feedback to improve your online sales.

Key Features

Equipment

How to Use

As a store prepares to send a container of products to e-commerce, they quickly enter a brief description of each item on a manifest created within Lister.

1. Click the clipboard icon in the top right navigation menu of Lister to go to the Manifests page

2. Click the blue "Add manifest" button

   

3. Describe the item being sent to e-commerce and hit the enter key on the keyboard or click the blue "Add Product" button

   

4. Continue adding items to the manifest until the container for the products is full

5. Optional: Add any notes about the items you want to share with the e-commerce processing team

6. Click the green "Save manifest" button

   

7. Click "Print Sheet" at the top of the manifest to print a copy of the manifest to a standard office printer, then fold and attach the printed manifest to the outside of the container

   

The printed manifest is a standard 8 ½ x 11 page that displays a list of the items in the container with a barcode for the entire manifest at the top right of the page. This barcode is then used during the transportation and processing of items. We recommend keeping this barcode visible outside the container for easy scanning by the transportation and e-commerce processing teams.

Example Printed Manifest:

What to do if Stores Can't Manifest

Certain organizations may be unable to manifest at the store level due to technical limitations such as no internet access, staffing issues, or smaller operations with only one source of online products. In these scenarios, the e-commerce team has four options for barcoding products.

Option 1: Replicate Store Manifesting

This entails cataloging all items in a container sent from the store and then accepting and rejecting each item accordingly. This option is excellent from a data integrity perspective as it will log all items sent and give stores feedback on what was or was not acceptable for e-commerce. That said, this option can be very time-consuming and may be unattainable for your team.

Option 2: Manifest only Accepted Items (recommended)

In this option, processors only add the items they are accepting to manifests, bulk accept them, and print the barcodes. This is our recommended option for replicating store manifests as it is more efficient than option 1 and still gives stores some data on what types of items they should send.

Option 3: Bulk Barcode Generation Via Manifests

This option may be suitable if the e-commerce team is really strapped for time and needs to get barcodes on products as quickly as possible. Generate up to 100 product barcodes in under 30 seconds using the method outlined below:

1. Navigate to the Manifests page and click the blue "Add manifest" button

   

2. Select the appropriate supplier

3. Enter a generic name for the item, like "product" or "item" and click the blue "Add Product" button or hit enter on your keyboard

4. Click the green "Save manifest" button

   

5. Select the checkbox next to the item

6. Click "Divide" and set the number of items you're accepting, then click "Save"

   

7. Click the top checkbox to select all items, then click "Accept"

   

8. Click the top checkbox to select all items, then click "Print barcodes"

   

Option 4: Generate Barcodes Without Manifests

This option may be a good fit for smaller 1-3 person teams who work out of a single location with both an e-commerce processing area and a physical retail floor.

Additional Resources

Transporting Manifests From Stores to E-Commerce

Depending on the size of your organization, you may find store teams, transportation teams, and loss prevention teams need a quick and easy way to communicate the status of e-commerce transfer to each other, and as a corollary, your e-commerce team may need an easy way to notify these departments once a transfer of products has been received before they are processed.

With Manifest Tracking, all of the above is easy to do within Lister and Link!

Key Features

Equipment

How to Use

The printed barcode at the top of the manifest sheet (shown above) is used to update the shipping status of the manifest, providing up-to-date information on the status of each manifest.

1. Store Team: Once a store has finished creating a manifest, they update the status from "Created" to "Ready for Pickup"

   

2. Transportation Team: When the transportation team takes possession of the manifest, they scan the printed manifest barcode in Link or via Lister to change the status to "In Transit"

   

   • As an alternative to using Link, drivers can log into Lister to mark the manifest in transit:

     

3. E-Commerce Processing Team: After the shipment has been delivered, the e-commerce team then updates the status to "Received" via Link or Lister

   • Receive Manifests via Link: Tap "Receive manifests" on the dashboard, then tap the scan icon and scan the manifest barcode

     

   • Update Manifest Status via Lister: As an alternative to using Link, scan the manifest barcode in Lister, then click the "Mark received" button

     

Additional Resources

Related Guides

Lister Start to Finish Workflow Guide: Part 2

Lister Start to Finish Workflow Guide: Part 3