What is a packing slip? A complete guide for e-commerce

A customer places an order. Your team picks the products, packs them, and prepares the parcel for shipping.

Sounds simple, right? But as order volumes grow, so does the risk of packing mistakes, especially when an order contains several products or ships in multiple boxes. Keeping track of the right products, documents, and shipping labels can quickly become a challenge.

That’s where packing slips come in. They help your team check that every parcel contains the right items, reduce packing errors, and keep your fulfillment process organized as your business grows.

In this guide, you’ll learn

• what a packing slip includes,

• how it differs from a shipping label, invoice or picking list,

• and how to keep your packing process running smoothly. #

Let’s break it down.

Packing slips explained: Definition and purpose

A packing slip is a document that lists the products and quantities included in a shipment. It usually travels inside the parcel and helps your team and your customer check what’s inside.

Here’s how that works in practice.

Imagine a customer places an order at your online store:

• 2 T-shirts

• 1 pair of jeans

• 1 jacket

If everything ships in one parcel, the packing slip lists all four items.

But what if the jacket is out of stock and needs to ship separately?

Each parcel can have its own packing slip showing exactly what’s inside. That’s an important distinction: a packing slip reflects the contents of a specific shipment, not necessarily the customer’s entire order.

Your packing team can use it to check that the right products are included before shipping, while customers can use it to see which items they’ve received.

Even when orders are managed digitally, packing slips provide a useful reference during the physical packing process. They help your team verify parcel contents without switching between systems and give customers a clear overview of what they’ve received, especially when orders arrive in multiple shipments.

What does a packing slip look like?

A packing slip typically includes the key information needed to identify an order and verify what’s inside a parcel. Some details are essential, while others depend on your business and the fulfillment process.

What information should a packing slip include?

The essentials are the order number and the details that make each product easy to identify:

• Order number

• Product name

• SKU

• Variant, such as size or color

• Quantity ordered

• Quantity included in the shipment

The most important thing is that your packing slip clearly shows which products and quantities are included in the parcel. Additional details can make the document more useful for your team and customers, depending on how you manage your orders.

The key is to keep the document practical. Your team should be able to scan it quickly and understand exactly what belongs in the parcel.

Additional information (optional):

• Order date

• Sender details

• Customer or recipient details

• Shipping method

• Barcode that links the document to the order

• Branding, such as your company logo

• Special notes or return instructions

What doesn’t need to be on a packing slip?

A packing slip focuses on what’s inside a shipment, not what the customer paid. That’s why prices, payment details, and billing information aren’t usually included. This is especially useful for gift orders or when the person receiving the parcel isn’t the one who placed the order.

An invoice, on the other hand, typically includes product prices, taxes, discounts, and the total amount due or paid.

That said, businesses can choose to include prices on a packing slip if it suits their fulfillment process.

Packing slip vs. other shipping documents

Several documents are used throughout the fulfillment process, and their names can sometimes be confusing. While some may sound similar, each serves a different purpose.

Here’s a quick overview of how they compare:

Let’s look at the differences in more detail.

Do you need a packing slip, and why use one?

Not always. A packing slip isn’t a universal requirement for e-commerce parcels, so it comes down to what your workflow needs. But packing slips can make fulfillment much easier to manage.

They give your team a clear reference when checking orders before shipping and give customers an easy way to confirm what they received.

Packing slips become especially useful when:

• Orders contain multiple products. Your packer can check each item off before closing the box.

• Products look alike. A slip that shows size and color helps catch the medium shirt packed instead of the large one.

• Orders are split across parcels. Each parcel lists only what’s inside, so the customer knows the jacket is still on its way.

• Customers return items. The slip helps identify the original order and product, and can carry return instructions.

• Several people pick and pack. A shared reference keeps checks consistent as your team grows.

For a store shipping a handful of orders per week, a packing slip may feel optional. As volumes grow, however, small fulfillment mistakes can quickly become expensive.

How to create and print a packing slip

Packing slips can be created in several ways.

Small businesses may create them manually using templates or spreadsheets. E-commerce platforms and warehouse systems can also generate them automatically from order data.

Shipping software can take this a step further by connecting the packing slip directly to the fulfillment and shipping process.

Whichever method you choose, the basic steps are similar:

• Open or import the order. Find the order in your store or fulfillment system.

• Add the order and delivery details. Include the order number and the sender and recipient information.

• List the products and quantities. Add product names, variants and quantities. If the order is split across parcels, list only the products in that parcel.

• Include useful identifiers. Add SKUs and the order number so your team can match products quickly.

• Add a barcode where relevant. A barcode on the slip can link the document to the order in your workflow.

• Generate the packing slip. Check that the information is correct.

• Print it. Standard paper and a regular printer work fine. You can print individually as orders come in, or in batches together with shipping labels.

• Verify the contents. Compare the slip with the products before you complete the shipment.

For a handful of orders, creating and printing packing slips one by one works well. As volumes grow, opening each order, generating documents and matching them to shipping labels takes more time, and every manual match is another chance for a mistake. Many e-commerce platforms can generate basic packing slips.

Shipping and fulfillment software can also generate them in bulk or print them together with their matching shipping labels, so your team doesn’t have to match documents by hand.

In Sendcloud, you can customize your packing slip, for example by adding your logo. Find out how in our Help Center guide to customized packing slips.

How packing slips fit into the pick-and-pack process

A packing slip is just one piece of the fulfillment puzzle. Before a parcel is ready to ship, your team needs to find the right products, check them against the order, pack them, and prepare the shipping documents.

A typical workflow looks something like this:

Order received → Products picked → Products verified → Order packed → Packing slip + shipping label → Shipment

The packing slip helps connect the physical products in the parcel to the order information. Your team can use it to check the contents before sealing the box, while the shipping label tells the carrier where the parcel needs to go.

That sounds straightforward when you’re processing a handful of orders. But imagine several employees packing dozens, or even hundreds, of orders at the same time. Suddenly, finding the right order, matching the correct documents, and keeping everything organized takes a lot more effort.

That’s where the bigger opportunity lies: making the entire picking and packing process more efficient, rather than simply printing packing slips faster.

How to make packing slips more efficient at scale

One extra click or warehouse walk might not seem like much. Repeat it across 100 orders, and suddenly it’s costing your team serious time.

That’s where a more structured picking and packing process starts to pay off.

Here are a few ways to make packing slips more efficient as order volumes grow.

Generate packing slips in bulk

Opening each order, generating its packing slip and printing it one by one takes a few clicks every time. Across dozens of orders, those clicks add up. Generating packing slips for multiple orders at once replaces that routine with a single step, which helps most during busy periods such as sales campaigns.

Print packing slips and shipping labels together

A packing slip and a shipping label belong to the same parcel. When they’re printed separately, someone has to match them by hand, and a slip that ends up in the wrong parcel makes your checks unreliable and confuses the customer. Generating them together keeps each pair connected and removes the matching step. If you print labels yourself, our guide to label printers can help you choose the right setup.

Use picking lists for batch picking

Picking lists don’t change the packing slip itself. They make the step before it faster. Instead of walking through the warehouse for every order, your team collects products for multiple orders in one route and sorts them into the right parcels afterwards, which cuts down on unnecessary walking.

Connect packing slips to orders with barcodes

A barcode links a physical document or product to the matching order. Depending on your workflow, scanning it can bring up the right order straight away, so your team doesn’t have to search for it, and confirms that the right product goes into the right parcel.

Verify products before shipping

A last check against the packing slip before closing the parcel catches mistakes before they reach the customer. It matters most for similar-looking products and variants, such as a medium and a large in the same color, where a quick visual check is easy to get wrong.

Optimize your Pick & Pack workflow with Sendcloud

A packing slip tells your team what belongs in a parcel. But what if your packing process could also help you find the right order, check its products, and prepare the shipping documents without switching between multiple manual steps?

That’s where Sendcloud’s Pick & Pack capabilities come in.

With Sendcloud, you can generate packing slips for individual or multiple orders and print them alongside their corresponding shipping labels.

For growing e-commerce teams, Pack & Go helps bring more structure to the packing process. Depending on your workflow and configuration, you can use order barcodes to load the relevant order, work from picking lists, and verify products with barcode scanning where supported.

Instead of treating packing slips, order information, and shipping labels as separate tasks, you can connect them in one more efficient workflow.

The result? Less manual order handling, more consistent packing checks, and a smoother process as order volumes grow.

Make packing slips part of a smarter fulfillment workflow

A packing slip may be a simple document, but the process around it matters more as your order volumes grow. Structured picking, packing, verification and document generation help you keep fulfillment efficient as you scale.

Ready to streamline your picking and packing process? Discover how Sendcloud helps you process orders faster, reduce manual work and create a more efficient fulfillment workflow.