How should I slot fast-moving SKUs in my warehouse to reduce pick travel time?

Put the SKUs you pick most often in the golden zone, then replenish the pick face from reserve. Do not slot by vendor, color, or the aisle where the pallet landed.

Velocity means picks, not revenue

Velocity is picks, not revenue. A cheap liner that hits every order belongs up front. A high-price hero that ships twice a week does not.

90-day pick lines: liner 2,400 (about 27 picks a day), hero candle at $68 with 90 lines (about 1 pick a day). The liner sits in a mezzanine bulk bin. The candle sits at waist on the first aisle because it is the brand. That is a slotting miss. Move the liner to a waist-high bin on the first stretch of the path. Park the candle one reach back. Size the liner pick face for one to three days of demand: about 27 to 80 units, not the 400 that landed on the pallet. The other 320 go to reserve. When the face hits min, replenish down. If last year's location is still the putaway default, tonight's receipt refills the mezzanine and the picker walks to empty.

Keep one forward pick bin

A second miss is the same SKU in two faces. Liner also has 60 units in B-04 pick and 90 in D-11 pick. Every order that needs two units can stop twice. Keep one forward bin. The rest is reserve, consumed last. Two buildings make this worse: New Jersey can golden-zone the liner while California still slots it in bulk from the last transfer. Re-slot both sites off the same pick-line list, or one node keeps paying the walk.

Build ABC from pick lines

Rank by pick lines over 90 days (or 30 in peak), then cut A / B / C on that list, not on the sales-value class you use for buying. Reusing one letter for slotting is how swatches occupy waist-high bins and the real mover sits in a mezzanine.

Slot A-movers in the golden zone

The golden zone is waist to chest, on the first stretch of the pick path. Give A-movers those bins. B-movers get the next reach. C-movers go high, deep, or into bulk. Humans read aisle-rack-level-position on the label. The walk is a separate sequence number, lowest stocked bin first. Keep golden-zone sequences in a block that always sorts ahead of reserve. If a fast mover's only open sequence is a top-rack overstock bin, pickers climb past a waist-high hole you never assigned. That is a slotting miss, not a pathing one.

When inbound lands in reserve, replenish down to the face; do not wait for the picker to climb. Re-slot when velocity changes. A last-year hero still parked at the pack bench is travel you pay for every wave.