Yesterday afternoon, we experienced a 3-hour outage in our connection with Bol.com. We’re truly sorry for the inconvenience. Here’s a recap of what happened.

The outage

The core of the outage was that the connection between Bol.com and Picqer didn’t work for most users on Monday 17 April, between 13:00 and 15:50.

During this period, the following functions were unavailable:

• New Bol.com orders were not imported into Picqer
• Stock changes in Picqer were not sent to Bol.com
• Orders marked as shipped in Picqer were not updated in Bol.com

Everything restored

Once we resolved the root cause at 15:50, we immediately started recovering all missed actions. We prioritized the most critical ones first.

• From 15:50, all orders were imported again. No orders were missed.
• By 17:00, stock for all products was updated at Bol.com. This ensured all stock changes during the outage were communicated.
• By 18:45, all orders shipped during the outage were marked as shipped in Bol.com.

Notifications about duplicate shipments

Since we couldn’t guarantee which shipped orders had already been marked as shipped, we re-submitted all Bol.com orders shipped during the outage. This resulted in some duplicate notifications in Picqer, saying that orders could not be marked as shipped.

These notifications were cleared this morning.

Check your open orders

We’ve restored all missed actions to the best of our ability. However, it's still possible that a shipment was missed.

To be sure nothing is missing, please check the Bol.com portal for any open orders from yesterday or earlier that you’ve already shipped. You can manually mark those as shipped within the Bol.com portal.

Technical details

Here’s what caused the outage:

We’re currently migrating to a new login method for Bol.com, which significantly changes how communication works between the two systems. At this stage, we have three types of connections:
- Old connections using the original login method
- Migrated connections using the new method
- Brand-new connections created directly using the new method

We discovered a bug affecting the last category. New connections were being disabled every hour due to a bug in our code. At 13:00, we deployed a new version of Picqer to fix this issue.

Unfortunately, that new version inadvertently deactivated all existing connections that hadn’t yet been migrated. Inactive connections don’t import orders or update stock and shipping info.

We noticed the issue after receiving reports from users and were able to identify and fix the error.

From 15:50 we had the situation under control and focused on resolving the impact. On Tuesday morning we started improving our monitoring and cleared all duplicate shipment notifications.

What’s next

The main reason the outage lasted so long is because we only noticed it after users reached out. That shouldn’t have happened. Normally, our monitoring and release processes catch errors quickly and we fix them right away. However, our monitoring didn’t yet track the drop in active Bol.com connections.

We’ve adjusted the monitoring today to ensure similar issues will be detected sooner in the future.

My apologies for this outage. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at support@picqer.com.

– Casper

Last month, Hugo joined Picqer. He’s happy to introduce himself:

Hugo Zonderland

Hi! I’m Hugo and since March 1st I’ve been working at Picqer as a Developer on the product team.

Before joining Picqer, I worked for nine years at a web development agency in Arnhem, where I mostly focused on retail. During that time, I came into contact with many different types of warehouse software. This was always from the “outside”—I integrated these systems for clients. After working with many of these tools, I became really interested in warehouse software and wanted to be part of the mission Picqer stands for: making it easy for webshops and fulfilment companies to run their warehouse efficiently, effectively, and professionally.

I live in beautiful Arnhem along the Rhine with my girlfriend Melissa and our two chihuahuas, Beer and Bowie. In my free time, I enjoy going to the gym, diving into cryptocurrencies, cooking meals with friends, or dining at great restaurants.

A fun fact: the agency I used to work for was Logict, which was acquired by Casper and Stephan in 2014. Over the years, I provided support for that software. You could already spot early tests for Picqer in the Logict codebase—some of which I still recognise today. It’s fun to think that that acquisition helped fund the development and launch of Picqer, and now I’m part of the Picqer team myself.

I’m excited to start this new adventure, to learn a lot of new things, and to get to know our users.

We had been looking forward to it for a long time, and last week it finally happened. We were at the Webwinkel Vakdagen with our updated booth at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. It's the perfect opportunity to meet online retailers and other e-commerce companies and share knowledge. We had many fun and valuable conversations—with webshop owners, Picqer users, and partners.

Both days of the event, our team of 10 colleagues was ready to talk about all things warehouse-related. Our booth was well attended and the great atmosphere made it a truly enjoyable experience. Check out the video impression:

Something for everyone

Our mission is to make it easy for every webshop and fulfilment company to run their own warehouse efficiently, effectively, and professionally. At the event, we spoke with both new webshop owners and those with more experience. They shared their passion for their businesses and the challenges they face in their warehouses. Because each situation is unique, we enjoyed discovering how we could help—sometimes by explaining how our software works, other times by offering a small tip for warehouse optimization.

Many current Picqer users also took the time to visit our booth. Some met us for the first time in person, while others stopped by to catch up. It was great to hear your experiences and learn more about what’s happening in your warehouses.

Picklist table stickers

This year, we introduced Picqer picklist table stickers. You might recognize this: utility knives, tape dispensers, and other tools that often go missing because someone walked off with them. These stickers help by giving every item a fixed spot on the packing table, so you always know where to find it. Want a free set of picklist table stickers for your packing tables? Request them here here.

The booklet Your warehouse deserves to shine with warehouse tips was also very popular again this year. With the tips inside, you can quickly take steps to make your warehouse more efficient. Don’t have a copy yet? Request one here.

Talks

This year, we gave two talks together with Picqer users. On Wednesday, Jesse from Go-in-style.nl shared how they improve their warehouse a little bit every day—and how that mindset is part of their company culture. On Thursday, Benne and Rens from Sound Factory talked about how they successfully optimized their warehouse amid the vinyl revival.

It was great to give our users the stage and hear how they approach warehouse optimization in practice. The sessions were well attended and we received lots of positive feedback. We hope we helped inspire others to optimize their own warehouses.

All in all, we look back on a successful event full of meaningful and enjoyable encounters.

See you at the next Webwinkel Vakdagen!

In recent weeks, we’ve made several improvements to the Picqer app related to receiving products.

The app now supports more receiving workflows and makes it easier to move received products.

Create a new receipt

You can now create a new receipt for a supplier or fulfilment customer directly from the receipts screen. To use this, make sure you have the latest version of the app from the App Store (iOS) or Google Play Store (Android).

Add products to a receipt

You can now add products from multiple purchase orders to a single receipt in the app. It’s also possible to add products that are not listed on a purchase order.

Move products after receiving

After adding the received products to your stock, you can scan them to move them to the correct location.

While moving products, you can scan a location to assign the items to it. This is done automatically if the scanned location is not yet linked to the product.

Filter locations when linking

When manually linking a new location, you can filter available locations by availability, bulk status, or location type.

If you scan the barcode of an aisle, only the locations within that aisle are shown. This makes it easier to select an available location within the same aisle.

Other updates

New

• Import purchase prices in a purchase order.
• Display the AB(C) label on the product detail page in the Picqer app.
• Added PostNL product 6972 (international tracked letterbox parcel).
• Enabled Packs as an external shipping method.
• Enabled Parcel4You as an external shipping method.

Tweaks

• Barcode update for PostNL 4947 international shipments.
• Filter backorders in the API using sinceid and sincedate.
• Show a clear error message if you try to create an international PostNL shipment without prices.

Fixes

• Incorrect sorting of sub-locations in the location overview.
• Allow optional columns to be used as the first column when importing into a purchase order.

It's almost time! On Wednesday 29 and Thursday 30 March, the Webwinkel Vakdagen will take place at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. This year, we’ll once again be present with a stand. Plus, we’ll be giving two talks together with customers about warehouse optimization.

The Webwinkel Vakdagen is the largest e-commerce event in the Netherlands. With over 250 exhibitors offering e-commerce solutions and more than 200 talks scheduled, it's the perfect place to network and get inspired.

Stop by for advice or a chat

We’ll be available both days to offer advice about warehouse optimization or just have a friendly chat. We’d love to see you at stand 76.