Customer Photos: A 3PL Pick Face Built From 2,508 Stack-and-Hang Bins

A warehouse pick face is the forward-facing layer of storage that pickers actually touch — the bins, shelf positions, or flow-rack lanes where each SKU is presented for order picking, as opposed to the reserve stock sitting behind or above it. For small-parts operations, the fastest way to build one is hopper-front stack-and-hang bins mounted on louvered panels: maximum SKU density, open-front visibility, and no mounting hardware. This post is the proof — a New Jersey 3PL that built its entire pick face from 2,508 Quantum QUS238 bins, delivered factory-direct in six days.

If you run a 3PL, a fulfillment center, or any operation onboarding new SKUs faster than your storage can keep up, this case study is for you. The buying problem it solves is the one this customer had: a new brand landing at the dock, no pick face to receive it, and no time for a slow quote-and-ship cycle.

They called us on a Friday. Six days later, FedEx Freight rolled up with 13 pallets of Quantum QUS238 stack-and-hang bins. The photos in this post are what the team built with them — one more example in our growing library of high-volume bin deliveries for large-scale fulfillment operations.

The order, by the numbers

• 2,508 Quantum QUS238 18″ x 5-1/2″ x 5″ hopper-front bins
• 209 cartons across four colors — Blue (1,092), Yellow (696), Green (492), Black (228)
• Extremely aggressive volume pricing — freight included
• 13 pallets, FedEx Freight LTL, factory-direct
• Order placed Tuesday. Delivered the following Monday.

What does a 3PL pick face need to get right?

A modern 3PL pick face has a few non-negotiables, and they line up almost exactly with the principles in our order picking bins selection & efficiency guide. Treat these as your decision criteria before you spend a dollar on bins:

1. Density. A lot of SKU homes packed into the smallest possible footprint — one of the core arguments in our writeup on setting up a small parts picking system.
2. Visibility. Pickers shouldn't have to dig — open hopper fronts, clear sightlines. (Same reason customers love our open-front stacking bins and clear open-front storage bins.)
3. Modularity. Bins need to hang on louvered panels and stack on shelf when needs change. The QUS238 lives natively in our louvered panels with bins and pick racks with bins systems.
4. Toughness. This stuff gets handled thousands of times a month. Cheap bins crack — and that's the whole reason commercial-grade plastic beats residential bins in any real warehouse.

Add a fifth requirement when you're an incubator-style 3PL onboarding new brands every quarter: wayfinding. Your pickers won't have a year of muscle memory to fall back on. The rack itself has to teach them where things live.

That's why this customer ordered four colors on purpose. The wall in the photos isn't decoration — it's a map. Each color block is a SKU family. A new picker walks up day one and the layout does half the training for them.

Why the QUS238?

The Quantum QUS238 sits in our Quantum Ultra Stack and Hang Bins collection — an 18″-deep hopper-front bin injection-molded from FDA-approved high-density polypropylene. Here's the spec sheet:

And in plain English, here's what those specs buy you on the floor:

• Rear hanging lip drops onto louvered panels and rails — no hardware required (browse the full louvered panels, racks & rail systems line)
• Wide stacking ledge with anti-slide lock so towers don't drift
• Front, back, and side grips for fast handling
• Guaranteed not to crack or break under normal load
• Freezer-to-autoclave temperature range — useful in everything from a dry-goods 3PL to a walk-in freezer or cooler buildout

It's the bin we recommend more than any other when somebody walks in saying "I need to build a pick face," and it's the same family that shows up in our writeups on the QUS248 in hardware retail and the QUS250 for optimized order picking. It hangs, it stacks, it survives, and it scales.

How did the order ship in six days?

The hard part wasn't the bins. It was the timing.

When the call came in, the first move was a stock check across all seven QUS238 colors at the Quantum factory. There were a little over 3,400 pieces on the floor — but they were split across colors, and not in the proportions the customer wanted. They didn't need a rainbow. They needed 2,500 bins in four specific colors, palletized, ready to leave the dock the next morning.

Here's what made it work — and it's the same playbook we ran for the operation in why Amazon chose Industrial 4 Less for their fulfillment centers:

• Quantum factory-direct. No distributor middleman, no extra handoff, no markup stack.
• Extremely aggressive volume pricing, locked in same day. Freight included.
• Priority pull and stage. The factory pulled other orders aside so this one could ship first.
• Single LTL shipment. 13 pallets on one BOL, one tracking number, one delivery window.

While we worked the order through the factory, the customer had their pallet rack and louvered panels staged on their end. Truck arrived, pallets came off, bins went up. No surprises, no missing pieces, no second shipment chasing the first — the kind of single-clean-shipment outcome we describe in our guide to enhancing warehouse organization with real-world applications.

What this looks like, finished

That's a 3PL pick face — built fast, designed to scale, and ready for whichever brand walks through the door next. If you're thinking about replicating the layout, our warehouse shelf organization case study is the most useful companion read — same product family, different industry, similar lift in pick speed.

Common pick face mistakes to avoid

We've helped a lot of operations build (and rebuild) pick faces. The same handful of mistakes come up over and over:

• Buying bins before confirming the mounting system. Stack-and-hang bins hang from a rear lip sized for louvered panels and rails. Mix brands or guess at compatibility and you end up with a wall of bins that won't seat properly.
• Ordering everything in one color. It looks tidy on the PO, but you throw away free wayfinding. Color-blocking by SKU family — like the four-color layout in this build — cuts training time and mis-picks without costing anything extra.
• Sizing bins to the part instead of the replenishment quantity. A bin that only holds a day of stock means someone is walking replenishment constantly. Size the bin to how much you want at the pick face between refills, not to the widget itself.
• Ignoring accessories until after the order ships. Dividers, clear windows, and label holders turn one bin into a multi-SKU position — but they're a lot cheaper to add on the original order than as a second freight shipment.
• Ordering exact quantities with no growth buffer. If you're a 3PL onboarding new brands, the pick face you need next quarter is bigger than the one you need today. A few extra cartons on a volume order costs little; matching a color and spec six months later can cost a lot more.

Which setup is best for your operation?

If you're building a pick face, or rebuilding one, this is the bin we'd put in front of you, and these are the categories we'd send you to first:

• Quantum Ultra Stack and Hang Bins — the family this order came from; best for high-volume pick faces on louvered panels or rails (21 bin models)
• Hanging Bins — the broader stack-and-hang category; best if you're comparing sizes and series
• Louvered Panels with Bins — best if you don't already have rack or panels to mount to
• Pick Racks with Bins — pre-configured pick stations; best for standing up a complete pick module in one order
• Stackable Bin Organizers — freestanding alternative; best if you want to skip the rack entirely
• Warehouse Storage and Organization — the parent collection for everything above

Frequently asked questions

What is a pick face in a warehouse?

A pick face is the forward-facing storage position where a SKU is presented for order picking — the bin, shelf slot, or flow lane a picker actually reaches into. It sits in front of (or below) reserve storage, which holds bulk stock used to replenish it. A well-designed pick face maximizes the number of SKU positions per foot of aisle while keeping every item visible and reachable.

What bins are used to build a warehouse pick face?

Hopper-front stack-and-hang bins are the standard choice, because the open front lets pickers see and grab parts without digging, and the rear hanging lip mounts on louvered panels or rails with no hardware. The build in this post used 2,508 Quantum QUS238 bins (18″ x 5-1/2″ x 5″) from the Quantum Ultra Stack and Hang Bins line. For smaller operations, pre-configured pick racks with bins deliver the same layout in one SKU.

Do stack-and-hang bins need special hardware to mount?

No. Quantum stack-and-hang bins have a molded rear hanging lip that drops directly onto louvered panels and hanging rails — no screws, clips, or brackets. The same bins also stack on flat shelving with an anti-slide ledge, so you can rearrange the pick face without buying anything new.

Why use multiple bin colors in a pick face?

Color-coding turns the rack itself into a wayfinding system: each color block marks a SKU family or client zone, so pickers can navigate by sight before they read a single label. It matters most in 3PLs and high-turnover operations where new pickers can't rely on muscle memory. The customer in this case study ordered four colors — blue, yellow, green, and black — specifically to map brand zones.

How do you build a pick face quickly?

Stage the rack and louvered panels first, then order bins factory-direct in a single LTL shipment so everything arrives palletized at once. In this build, the order went from stock check to delivered in six days — 13 pallets on one bill of lading — and the bins went up the day the truck arrived. Splitting the order across shipments or vendors is the usual cause of a stalled installation.

Related reading

• Order Picking Bins: Selection & Efficiency Guide
• Why You Should Consider Setting Up a Small Parts Picking System
• High-Volume Storage Bin Deliveries for Large-Scale Fulfillment Operations
• How to Choose the Right Bins
• Most Popular Bins & Containers for Warehouses
• The Benefits of Using Stackable Storage Bins and Containers
• Industrial Use Cases for Open Front Bins
• Customer Photos: QUS250 for Optimized Order Picking
• Customer Photos: Transport and Storage in Warehouse

Need bins like this for your warehouse?

We carry the full Quantum stack-and-hang line — every size, every color, every accessory (dividers, clear covers, windows, labels). For volume orders we routinely beat list pricing by a wide margin and include freight. The team that handled this order can handle yours — send us your SKU count and layout, and we'll quote the whole pick face, freight included.

Talk to us:

• Phone: 305-333-8888
• Email: contact@industrial4less.com
• Shop the bin: Quantum QUS238 — 18″ Stack & Hang Bin
• Browse the family: Quantum Ultra Stack and Hang Bins