Inside Face The Future’s Warehouse: 2,000 Orders a Day with Near-Zero Errors

How Face The Future scaled from a kitchen operation to a 20,000 sq.ft warehouse shipping up to 2,000 orders a day, using Helm WMS to prioritise locations, batch picks and verify every item at pack. 

Face The Future has worked with Helm WMS since 2017, back when the operation was run out of a residential house next to its clinic. What began as manual, paper-based picking from a kitchen has evolved into a high-throughput eCommerce warehouse capable of processing between 700 and 2,000 orders a day, even through peak periods like Black Friday. 

We joined Mark and the team at Face The Future to look inside the operation, following goods-in, replenishment, picking, container picking, and barcode-verified packing to understand how the team maintains speed without sacrificing accuracy. 

From a Kitchen Table to a Purpose-Built Warehouse  

When Face The Future first adopted Helm WMS (formerly Despatch Cloud), the warehouse consisted of a house layout:  

• The kitchen doubled as a staff room  

• The living room was used for packing  

• The dining room stored all the inventory  

At the time, Helm was still under active development. New requirements were discussed directly with the product team and founder Matthew, and implemented quickly, shaping workflows around real operational needs.  

In June last year, Face The Future moved into its current warehouse. The transition required relocating the entire operation over a single weekend, ensuring orders could resume shipping the following Monday. Today, the site spans approximately 20,000 square feet and can scale further as volumes grow.  

Goods-in Designed to Keep Picking Moving  

Inbound stock arrives in a dedicated goods-in area. From here, the process is deliberately simple.  

• Deliveries are checked against purchase orders  

• Stock is booked into Helm WMS  

• Items are staged onto trolleys ready for replenishment  

Replenishment happens continuously throughout the day rather than in fixed waves. Fast-moving SKUs are proactively topped up, reducing picker downtime and preventing congestion during peak order periods.  

The business sells a mix of its own products alongside well-known beauty brands such as SkinCeuticals, CeraVe, La Roche-Posay, and Ultrasun, meaning inbound deliveries vary in size from single cartons to full pallets depending on supplier and product type.  

Warehouse Layout Built Around Location Priorities  

The picking area is organised into clearly labelled rows and blocks. Each block contains sequential locations, creating a structured and repeatable flow.

Helm WMS applies location-priority rules that define the exact order in which locations are picked. Picks begin at the first location in the sequence (A0A) and guide the picker through the block and back again.

Before implementing location priorities, pickers could be sent from one row to another in no logical order, increasing walking time and physical strain. With priorities in place:  

• Pickers follow a single, continuous loop  

• Aisles are only visited once per pick wave  

• Routes remain consistent regardless of order volume  

This structure becomes critical when container picking is layered on top.  

Container Picking: Batching 25 to 30 Orders Per Run  

Rather than picking one order per basket, Face The Future uses container picking to batch multiple orders into a single guided pick.   

Pickers load a trolley fitted with containers and begin a pick wave. For each item: 

• The product barcode is scanned  

• The assigned container is scanned  

• The item is placed into the container  

The picker then continues through the warehouse following Helm’s location priorities. A single container typically holds between 25 and 30 orders.  

To keep packing efficient, orders are grouped by similar quantities, such as all orders with two items, three items, or four items. Picks are capped at a maximum of 50 items per container, balancing speed with accuracy.  

Compared to order-by-order picking, this approach eliminates repeated walks between distant locations and prevents baskets from piling up at packing stations. 

Packing With Full Barcode Verification  

At the packing station, containers are processed one order at a time.  

When the packer scans the first items in a container, Helm WMS displays:  

• The remaining items on that order  

• Product names  

• Product images  

Each item must be scanned before the order can be completed. Once verified, the system pulls up the customer details, prints the shipping label and the order is ready to dispatch. 

If an issue is detected, such as a missing customs value for a free promotional item or a destination requiring additional documentation, packers can resolve it immediately within the workflow. 

This scan-to-verify process is especially important in beauty, where products often differ only by small details such as shade or formulation. 

Mis-Picks Below 0.1% in a Variant-Heavy Category  

Face The Future reports mis-pick and fulfilment error rates of less than 0.1 percent.  

Before adopting barcode scanning, picking was entirely manual. Staff relied on reading product names and addresses, which led to frequent errors. In categories where visual differences are subtle, mistakes were difficult to spot before dispatch.  

With Helm’s enforced scanning:  

• The wrong product cannot be picked or packed  

• Lookalike SKUs are differentiated by barcode, not judgment  

• Errors are caught before the parcel leaves the warehouse  

The result is higher customer satisfaction and reduced time spent handling returns and complaints. 

Paperless Picking That Scales With People, Not Experience  

All picking is carried out using Helm’s handheld app on mobile picking guns.   

As pickers move through the warehouse, the app displays:  

• The next pick location 

• Product name  

• Product image  

Locations must be scanned before items can be picked, ensuring the correct bin is accessed every time.  

This paperless approach removes the need to print and reconcile pick lists and makes onboarding significantly faster. During peak periods like Black Friday, office staff can step into the warehouse and contribute immediately without relying on tribal knowledge. 

Although handheld devices require an upfront investment, the team reports that time savings and error reduction quickly outweigh the cost.  

Results that eCommerce Brands & 3PLs Can Expect  

• Throughput: 700 to 2,000 orders shipped per day  

• Efficiency: location priorities reduce travel and backtracking  

• Accuracy: barcode-verified packing keeps errors below 0.1%  

• Scalability: container picking batches 25 to 30 orders per run  

• Resilience: cross-trained staff can support fulfilment during peak 

Watch The Warehouse Tour  

See goods-in, replenishment, container picking and barcode-verified packing in action in the full warehouse tour video.  

If you're an eCommerce brand or 3PL looking to increase throughput while protecting accuracy, Helm WMS helps you structure pick routes, batch orders efficiently and verify every item before it ships. 

Speak with the Helm team to see how it works in practice.