How Northgate Logistics cut mis-picks by 80% in 60 days

Northgate Logistics runs fulfillment for 40+ e-commerce brands across three warehouses. Before switching platforms, their mis-pick rate sat around 2.4% — high enough that chargebacks and reshipments were eating a noticeable share of margin on their thinnest-margin clients.

The problem wasn't the pickers

Northgate's ops director had already tried the obvious fixes — more training, stricter QC spot-checks — before realizing the real issue was structural: paper pick lists gave pickers no real-time feedback when they grabbed the wrong bin.

“We were correcting mistakes after they happened. We needed the system to stop them before they left the bin.”

— Northgate Logistics, Operations Director

What changed

The result

Within 60 days of rolling barcode confirmation out across all three warehouses, Northgate's mis-pick rate dropped from 2.4% to under 0.5% — an 80% reduction — without adding headcount or slowing average pick time, since the scan step replaced a manual double-check pickers were already doing informally.

The bigger, less-expected win: client trust. Two of Northgate's largest accounts cited the drop in shipping errors directly when renewing multi-year contracts.