How to build a pick list from an orders CSV

When you pack many orders at once, walking the shelves once with a pick list is faster than fetching items order by order. A pick list totals how many of each SKU you need across the whole batch. You can build one from any orders export with a pivot table.

What you need in the file

• A SKU column (or an item-name column if you do not use SKUs), a quantity column and an order-number column. For example, Shopify's order export has Lineitem SKU, Lineitem quantity and Name, with one row per line item.
• Quantities stored as plain numbers, not text. Rows with an empty quantity are a sign that the row belongs to an order with a missing item.

Steps in a spreadsheet

1. Open the CSV and check that the first row holds the headers.
2. Filter the rows to the orders you are about to pack (for example, unfulfilled ones).
3. Insert a pivot table from the data range.
4. Put the SKU column in Rows and the sum of the quantity column in Values.
5. Add a second Rows field, the order number, if you want to see which orders each SKU belongs to (this makes the table longer, so it is better as a second sheet or a text-joined column).
6. Sort the SKU column. Sorting in natural order (A2 before A10) matches shelf order better than plain text sorting; if your sheet sorts A10 before A2, pad numbers with zeros in your SKU scheme (A02, A10).
7. Print the pivot table. Add a blank “Picked” column to tick off.

Handle the awkward rows

• Items with no SKU: total them by item name and variation instead. Otherwise two different items collapse into one blank row.
• Multi-quantity lines: use the sum of the quantity column, not a count of rows.
• Cancelled or fulfilled orders: filter them out before you build the table, or the list will tell you to pick things that are not needed.

Check it

Add up the pick list quantities and compare them with the sum of the quantity column for the same filtered rows. They should match exactly.

Sliploom includes a pick list that totals units per SKU across the loaded orders, in natural SKU order with the source order numbers, and prints it at the paper size you choose (Pro feature). It works from the CSV in your browser.

Sources

1. Shopify Help Center, "Exporting orders" (order export CSV structure: one row per line item): https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/orders/manage-orders/exporting-orders (read 2026-10-28)

Related tool: Sliploom. Estimates and guidance only; check the source documents before relying on a figure.

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