Order Picking Carts: Everything You Need to Know
Order picking accounts for more labor cost than any other warehouse activity. The cart your team uses directly affects pick speed, accuracy, and worker fatigue. This guide covers every type of picking cart, how to choose the right one, and how technology is transforming carts from simple conveyances into guided execution tools.
Whether you're outfitting a new fulfillment center or upgrading an existing operation, the right cart choice has a measurable impact on throughput and error rates.
What Is an Order Picking Cart?
An order picking cart is any wheeled platform used to transport items through a warehouse during the fulfillment process. At its simplest, it's a mobile workspace that lets a picker move through aisles, collect items, and deliver them to packing or shipping without returning to a fixed workstation between picks.
The right cart does more than carry inventory. It reduces walking distance, minimizes physical strain, and when combined with the right workflow methodology, directly improves pick accuracy and throughput. In high-volume operations, cart selection is an operational decision with measurable financial consequences.
Reduce Travel Time
Consolidate picks into fewer trips through the warehouse
Lower Fatigue
Ergonomic carts reduce strain and improve sustained productivity
Improve Accuracy
Organized totes and compartments minimize sorting errors
Types of Order Picking Carts
The right cart depends on your product dimensions, weight, aisle layout, and picking methodology. Here's what's available.
Stock Picking Cart
The workhorse of most warehouses. Available in steel, resin, or wire construction with multiple shelf configurations. Some models include built-in ladders, tablet holders, and accessory hooks. Choose lighter materials like resin or wire when your items are light and speed matters.
Security Cart
Enclosed carts with locking systems for transporting high-value, sensitive, or hazardous items. Available in coated steel wire or welded steel, with security ranging from simple padlocks to fingerprint or chip readers.
Service Cart
Originally designed for food service, these lightweight carts work well for picking smaller, lighter items. Multiple size and configuration options make them versatile across different product categories.
Utility Cart
A proven standard for a reason. Available with up to three shelves and compatible with add-on bins and caddies. Handles moderate loads reliably and is easy to maneuver in tight aisles.
Platform / Truck Cart
Flat-bed carts in wood, resin, or steel for moving heavy or oversized items. Best paired with hoists or gantry cranes for loading rather than manual lifting.
Pallet Truck
Powered or manual, with or without lift capability. Ideal for moving pre-palleted goods between receiving, storage, and shipping. Pay close attention to weight limits.
Electric Hybrid Cart
Compact, motorized carts like the Smart Rack 900 that let pickers stand on a platform and drive through narrow aisles. Effective for high-density environments where walking distance is a bottleneck.
Pack Mule (Electric Towable)
Electric tow units that pull multiple carts in a train configuration. They expand capacity and reduce travel time across large facilities by combining speed with flexible cart arrangements.
Forklift
For the heaviest loads and pallet-scale operations. Requires trained operators and represents a significant investment, but is essential when you're moving large volumes of heavy inventory across receiving, storage, and shipping.
Choosing the Right Cart
When evaluating carts, consider four factors: the weight and dimensions of your typical items, your aisle width, how many orders you need to pick per trip, and where you'll store accessories like scanners, labels, and packing materials. A cart that's too heavy slows your team down. A cart that's too light won't survive daily use.
Off-the-shelf and customizable options exist for virtually every warehouse environment. The key is matching the cart to the workflow, not the other way around.
Batch Picking with Carts
Batch picking combines multiple orders into a single picklist so a worker can collect all required items in one pass through the warehouse. Instead of walking the same aisle five times for five separate orders, the picker makes one trip and sorts items into order-specific totes on the cart.
This method dramatically reduces walking time and increases the number of picks per hour. It's particularly effective in operations with a high concentration of SKUs spread across a large floor area, especially where conveyor systems aren't practical.
Non-Electric Batch Picking Cart Configurations
Batch-picked orders are placed into order-specific totes or shipping boxes on the cart. The right configuration depends on your order profile:
Maximizes vertical space for high-volume, small-item operations
Angled shelves give pickers better visibility and easier access
Fixed compartments for standardized order sizes
Ergonomic height for heavier items, easier loading and unloading
Efficiency gains scale with item size. A cart loaded with small items like contact lenses or electronic components can handle many orders per trip. Larger items like bags of pet food or cases of product will reduce orders per trip but still benefit from consolidated travel paths. Learn more about batch picking and other use cases for guided execution.
Standard vs. Industrial Picking Carts
Standard carts handle lightweight items and frequent repositioning. Industrial carts are built for heavier loads and longer service life. The right choice depends on what you're moving and how hard you'll push the equipment.
Standard Carts
Industrial Carts
New vs. Used Picking Carts
Used picking carts are a legitimate option. Warehouses and distribution centers cycle through equipment regularly, creating a steady supply of pre-owned carts in good working condition. Heavy-duty industrial carts hold up particularly well and are easier to find on the secondary market.
Advantages of Used Carts
Trade-Offs to Consider
The math often favors used: a company might pay the same amount for five standard new carts as another pays for five used industrial carts that will last significantly longer.
How Much Do Picking Carts Cost?
Cart pricing varies based on size, shelf count, construction material, and load capacity. Like most warehouse equipment, you get what you pay for.
Simple wire stock carts from general retailers
Heavy-duty welded steel for demanding environments
Pre-owned industrial carts in good working condition
When budgeting for carts, factor in longevity and maintenance costs, not just sticker price. A cart that lasts five years at $600 costs less per year than a cart that lasts two years at $175.
How Technology Is Changing Picking Carts
The picking cart has evolved beyond a simple platform on wheels. Today's carts accommodate barcode scanners, tablets, and mobile devices as standard accessories. But the biggest transformation is the integration of pick-to-light systems directly onto the cart itself.
This combination — batch picking methodology plus light-directed guidance — creates a workflow where the picker moves through the warehouse once and the cart tells them exactly which tote each item belongs in. The result is faster picking with fewer sorting errors.
Traditional Wired vs. Wireless Pick-to-Light
Pick-to-light on carts isn't new. What's changed is how it's deployed — and what that means for cost, flexibility, and performance.
Traditional Wired Systems
Wireless (Voodoo)
Voodoo's wireless cloud display devices turn any picking cart into a smart cart. No battery packs, no wiring harnesses, no special cart models. Just mount, pair, and go.
See Smart Carts in ActionTwo Ways to Use a Smart Cart
Wireless pick-to-light on a cart supports two distinct workflows, depending on your operation's complexity and throughput requirements.
Put-to-Light (Single System)
Best for operations where the picker already knows the pick location and needs guidance only on the sort/put step.
Pick-to-Light + Put-to-Light (Dual System)
Best for high-volume operations where both the pick and put steps benefit from guided execution. Eliminates search time and sorting errors simultaneously.
Where Smart Carts Make an Impact
Wireless pick-to-light on carts isn't limited to a single workflow. Because the devices are modular and cloud-controlled, the same hardware supports a wide range of fulfillment and manufacturing applications:
Picking carts paired with wireless display devices optimize batch picking by reducing total travel distance while increasing accuracy and pick rates. Batch-picked orders are often taken directly to put-walls for sortation, packing, and shipping.
Turn Your Carts into Smart Carts
Mount wireless display devices on your existing picking carts and start guiding every pick and put. No wiring, no special carts, no infrastructure changes.