Over the years, I’ve walked into a lot of eCommerce warehouses.

Some were growing fast, some just trying to stay afloat. But there’s one thing they all had in common:

They were working incredibly hard to hold everything together.

On the surface, things were ticking along, orders going out, teams doing their best, customers mostly happy.

But dig a little deeper, and I saw the truth:

• Staff staying late to fix mistakes that shouldn't happen.
• Pickers walking miles each day on routes that made no sense.
• Managers firefighting stockouts, oversells, and courier chaos.
• A constant sense of pressure, like things might fall apart if even one person called in sick or was on annual leave.

I’ve seen how these issues creep in gradually. They’re not always obvious, and they rarely trigger alarm bells.

But they do come with a cost, a very real cost to your time, your money, and your team.

Here’s a simple framework I use to help warehouse leaders uncover and calculate what I call the Cost of Chaos, the hidden drains on time, money, and team morale.

Here’s what I’ve learned to look for, and how you can start putting numbers to the leaks.

1. The Hidden Cost of Double Handling

You hear it a lot:

“We just double-check everything to be safe.”

So, someone packs it, then someone else checks it…

It sounds reasonable. But when you break it down:

• 2 extra minutes per order
• 200 orders per day

That’s nearly 7 hours of extra labour every single day. Over a month? That’s a full-time salary, gone.

Double handling isn’t just time-consuming, it’s a sign of broken processes.

Barcode-driven picking and automated checks aren’t a luxury anymore. They’re a profit protection strategy.

2. The Cost of Stockouts & Overselling

If your inventory isn’t synced across your channels in real time, you’re opening the door to:

• Lost sales from stockouts.
• Refunds and returns on oversells.
• A growing pile of frustrated customers and support tickets.

These are more than growing pains, they’re profit erosion. And they’re measurable.

Start tracking:

• Missed checkouts due to 0 stock.
• Refund value per oversell.
• % of orders needing manual fixes.

When we quantify these, most clients are shocked by the numbers. A lack of live inventory visibility is one of the costliest blind spots in multichannel fulfilment.

3. The Cost of Walking Time

You’re paying your pickers to pick. But how much of their shift is spent walking inefficient routes?

Here’s a real-world example:

• 5 minutes of unnecessary walking per pickwave.
• 12–15 pickwaves/day
• That’s 1+ hour of wasted time per picker, per day.

Multiply that by your team, and it becomes weeks of payroll lost every month.

Optimised pickwaves, zonal picking, location-based routing, and handheld devices can eliminate this waste immediately.

4. The Morale Multiplier

This one’s harder to track, but it’s just as real.

Chaotic warehouses aren’t just inefficient, they’re exhausting.

• Teams are constantly firefighting.
• Onboarding is slower and more painful.
• Workarounds become the norm.
• Staff churn increases, and experience walks out the door.

I’ve seen warehouses where good people leave, not because of the workload, but because the tools and systems make everything harder than it needs to be.

Investing in better systems often has a direct morale return, which stabilises operations in the long term.

‍The Compound Effect: Why This Matters

None of these issues feel catastrophic in isolation.

But together? They quietly destroy your margin, eat into your capacity, and make scale feel like stress, not growth.

This is why we built StoreFeeder.

To help warehouse teams spot these inefficiencies, eliminate them with better processes and automation, and protect both profit and peace of mind.

What Should You Do?

Better systems don’t just make your warehouse more efficient, they make it easier to grow.

Run the numbers. Use this framework to get a rough estimate of what chaos is costing you today.

Fix what’s fixable. Most of these issues can be solved faster than you think.

Talk to someone who’s been there. If you’d like to sense-check your numbers or walk through how StoreFeeder can help, drop me a message. I love solving these problems

Or get in touch for a demo, our team of experts in WMS and eCommerce are always on hand to show you how we can help your business overcome the same issues.

Book a demo of StoreFeeder today

Ian Dade - Operations Manager at StoreFeeder

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